


I Appear Missing

by dothemario



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Asexuality, California Is The Apex Of The World I Guess, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Explicit Language, Homophobic Language, M/M, Past Abuse, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:41:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27773968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dothemario/pseuds/dothemario
Summary: “I don’t not like your music. It’s just...weird to see you like that. Like this.”Ingrid gestured in his direction, then stretched her elbows back against the bar. Like this, when she found him plastered on the floor backstage. Like this, when he siphoned himself out of her life and played dead like a dog. Sylvain was a trash fire. Sylvain’s life sounded like Where It’s At by Beck.“It’s been a long time, Syl. Really long time.”The year is 2000. Sylvain learns the dangers of leaving himself behind.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Sylvain Jose Gautier & Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 32
Kudos: 41





	1. Animals

On June 5, 1977, there wasn’t shit to do in Joshua Tree, California. It turns out there still won’t be shit to do for the next ten years, and the next ten years, and the next. But when you’re born, it doesn’t matter what the world is and isn’t doing, because the only thing you can do is cry. When Sylvain was born, he didn’t cry, so the midwife slapped him until he did; pain is a good indicator that you are alive.

As it stands, there are three ways to pass the time in Joshua Tree:

  1. Sex.
  2. Drugs.
  3. Rock and roll.



It was so bad that there was even a song about it. As of today, Sylvain had worn two of these options out, and he was bursting at the seams. Sex was nauseating, drugs were paralyzing, and putting the two together didn’t mitigate either.

On June 5, 1987, Sylvain became in possession of his uncle’s Martin D-18, a hand-me-down from his expansive collection. Rosy red mahogany and spruce with a glossy finish, a full body that echoed a sound that made Sylvain nostalgic of memories that didn’t exist.

It was beautiful, so it wasn’t long before Sylvain destroyed it. It clattered down the stairs when he tripped on the top step, and that dented the shit out of it. There were two snapped tuning pegs, a deep notch through the neck, and a hairline crack that Sylvain would habitually jut his nail into, dragging from bottom to top, widening the crevice just a bit each time. 

Despite being broken beyond repair, Sylvain put all of his effort and love into trying to fix it, but it simply wasn’t enough. He decided to roll with the punches and adapt. The unwindable pegs forced him to compose in drop D, and the notch made barring on the fifth fret much easier. Still, he couldn’t stop his absentminded fidgeting with the fissure, which now stretched so far that it met from end to end of the body. 

He still had that guitar on December 31, 1999, in San Francisco, California. Its strings echoed when it fell to the closet floor.

This was the thirteenth girl he’d had in this closet, and he knocked the guitar over with his foot every time. Each girl always asked the same question, instead of sitting obediently as Sylvain went down on them. Why doesn’t Sylvain ever play that guitar? If he’s lucky, he can get away with not responding, but this one was insistent, knocking her knee against his temple. He doesn’t play it because it’s a piece of shit, is his answer. Why don’t you just throw it out, then? Sylvain does something to make her moan so she'll shut up.

She smooths her skirt back down, she wants to watch the ball drop, she shimmys out of the closet with Sylvain on her arm. In the sweaty tangle of partygoers crowded around the staticky TV, Sylvain sees stars. She is saying something to him with a smile on glassy pink lips. The music is too loud, and Sylvain hates this song. Wait, he wrote this song. He goes to kneel to catch his breath, but is locked in a kiss on his way down. He’s pulled out of it with a strong arm slung around his neck, belligerent shouting in his ear, and the screeches of fireworks. There’s a whole lot of people touching him right now. He is lost in his own apartment.

Every time Sylvain drinks, he swears to never drink again. The arousing waves of pinpricks coursing through his body never end up being worth his brain bouncing off the walls. If doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is insanity, then Sylvain is absolutely fucking bonkers. At least he made it to the balcony this time.

There was a smattering of blurry people in the parking lot below him, bright red cups and lit cigarettes indistinguishable. They were far enough away. The ground was too close. He gripped the railing and squeezed his eyes shut with a grunt, stuck in the perpetual state of dizziness that is too mild to warrant vomiting, but too intense to continue functioning. It’s fine, he’ll just stay out here for the rest of the night. 

Too bad his date was following right behind.

“C’mon babe, don’t be a downer. You can’t just dip after the countdown.” She jerked her head back toward the door, and dragged him by the arm toward it.

“Oh, did that happen? I didn’t realize.” He squeezed his nose bridge with his thumb and forefinger. Wrong answer? Right answer.

“Syl, we literally just kissed. When the ball dropped. We kissed at midnight.” She stopped in her tracks, and Sylvain stumbled. 

“Yeah, okay. Whatever. Go on in without me.”

She scoffed and dropped his arm, which dangled limply. “You always do this.”

“You’re right. Break up with me.”

The immediacy of his response was like whiplash, much too well-practiced. Her eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in anger.

“What the fuck? Are you not even gonna try and defend yourself?”

Nope. He ignored her and propped his elbows on the bannister and stared at the horizon.

“So you’re just gonna let me leave. You actually don’t give a shit about me.”

Yup. It’s still too warm, even outside.

She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again as she strutted up to him. “One of these days, you’re gonna be all alone.” She jabbed a finger into his chest. “And you’ll be alone forever, because nothing is ever fucking good enough for you, is it?” 

“You’re absolutely right,” Sylvain mumbled.

Not much you can say after that. She huffed, turned on her heel, and stomped back through the door, which she slammed hard enough to make the glass reverberate. Nobody bothered him after that.

“I’m already alone,” he laughed breathlessly, staring up into the starless sky. “I’m so fucking alone.”

—

On June 22, 1987, there still wasn’t shit to do in Joshua Tree, California, but Sylvain had a guitar. That’s one out of three right there. It’s hot in the middle of the summer, in the middle of nowhere. Dust danced in the pink glow of the evening sun emanating from the garage skylight.

“Why does it sound funny when I strum this one?” Sylvain tried again.

“Oh, that’s a hard one. You have to press down really hard to make it work, okay?” Glenn shuffled to sit behind him, and pressed his finger over Sylvain’s. “You gotta press _this_ hard, buddy. Now try strumming again.”

He did. The F chord rang out in the garage. Sylvain whipped his head around and grinned toothily.

“I did it! Lemme try again.” He wiggled Glenn’s finger off and strummed once more, but was met with a muted thrum. He turned to face his teacher with puppy dog eyes. 

“Hey, don’t worry!” Glenn ruffled Sylvain’s hair, who perked back up in response. “You just need to practice a little more, champ. Sooner or later, you’ll be loads better than I am.”

Sylvain rolled his eyes, but beamed shyly at the praise nonetheless. Nobody was better than Glenn, and Sylvain was sure that no one would ever be. Sylvain had looked up to his neighbor for as long as he could remember, and was always bending over backwards to impress him, often tripping in the process. Regardless, Glenn made Sylvain feel like he was the coolest kid in town, like he was his own younger brother.

Glenn already had a younger brother, though, and there is no way in hell Sylvain could ever forget that, because Felix liked to scream every few minutes. 

“Why don’t you ever teach _me_ guitar, Glenn?” Felix pouted.

“Felix, we don’t have this kind of guitar. We have a bass guitar.” Glenn stood to approach his brother, and Sylvain suddenly felt cold, despite the sweltering summer heat. “I offered to teach you, but you said no. Like, a thousand times.”

“That’s because your guitar is a stupid guitar,” Felix huffed. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest. 

“Okaaay, but if you learn to play my ‘stupid guitar’, you can play songs with Sylvain. Wouldn’t that be fun?” He prodded Felix’s red cheeks with his finger, and was quickly swatted away.

“...Yeah.” Felix muttered reluctantly, and he scuttled to Sylvain’s side. He smiled shyly when Sylvain slung an arm over his shoulders. 

“You and me can start a band, Fe! We’ll be like Hall & Oates.”

“But you suck at guitar—ow!” Sylvain thumped his forehead, but it just made Felix thump him back. The thump war continued until they were laughing in a pile on the floor. Glenn swooped down and picked them both up by their shirt collars, the two flailing and kicking to no avail.

“Aw c’mon, you two, you don’t wanna be like those geezers,” he admonished. Sylvain and Felix found ‘geezers’ unreasonably funny, and started laughing so hard their faces bloomed red. “You guys wanna be something cool, like Talking Heads.”

“No way, we’re gonna be like The Clash,” Felix stated proudly. ”Your music stinks, Glenn.” He blew a raspberry in his face, so Glenn shook him like a bag of coins. Sylvain used this as a diversion.

_“You_ stink, you little baby,” Glenn mocked. Felix turned even brighter red, and his smile was replaced with a puckered frown. Felix hated being called a baby. As the two fell into a giggling wrestling match, Sylvain stood watching fondly from the garage door. The fondness quickly turned sour, and Sylvain felt his heart in his throat. He felt sick. He quietly slid under the door, sighed, and made the trek back home. 

Sylvain also had a brother.

— 

The remains of the party littered the apartment like war spoils. Mostly red plastic cups and the odd cigarette butt, however there were a few treasures in the mess. The niftiest find was a keyring; the keys themselves were useless, but there was a keychain of a high-heeled pump, encrusted in pink rhinestones, dull sticky patches where some had lifted. It was stupid, and it was useless, and Sylvain wanted to keep it.

“You can’t keep it.”

Sylvain groaned, his back remaining turned to his roommate. He made towards the kitchen with a mop from the closet, but when he wheeled around, he ran face-first into a large hand. 

Dedue held him in place. “Do you ever rest?” 

Sylvain ducked out of his grip, and plunged the mop into a bucket of water. “The dead never rest.”

Dedue leaned over the kitchen island. “I think the phrase is something more along the lines of ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead.’” He snatched the mop from Sylvain’s hands. “Dead people have to rest. They’re dead.”

“It’s the same thing. I want to clean.” Sylvain wasn’t good at a lot of things, but cleaning was something he could actually do quite well; if he could clean up his apartment, maybe he could clean up his act. It hasn’t worked out so far. 

Sylvain sighed and stomped over to the closet.

Dedue leaned the mop against the counter, and called after him. “No vacuuming.”

The whirr of the vacuum. “Or else?”

“Or else I’ll cancel the pizza order.” Dedue crossed his arms, fingers drumming on his bicep.

Sylvain peered out beyond the closet door. “You ordered a pizza?” 

“Two pizzas.”

“Toppings?”

“One Hawaiian, one combo.”

Vacuum off. Sylvain waltzed back into the kitchen. “I’m in love with you. Can we kiss?” 

“Put the mop down.”

Sylvain dropped the mop, which he had snatched off the counter, and it hit the tile with a hollow thud. He wrapped himself around Dedue, who had his arms pinned at his sides. 

“Do so much as attempt to kiss me and I’ll punt you.”

And then there was pizza. The two ate out on the balcony, Sylvain laid out on his back, dangling his slice over his face like a bunch of grapes. He was still pretty hammered. Dedue sat leaning back against the railing, elbow propped on his knee.

“Happy new year,” he said.

Sylvain mumbled, “Every year is the same. Nothing about this is new.” He craned his head up to snap at a dangling string of cheese.

“You’ve been quite nihilistic tonight.”

Sylvain’s neck hurt from repeatedly reaching for the pizza. He pulled himself up to a squat. 

“Aren’t I always?” He drawled.

“No. You’re usually just dramatic. This is nihilism,” Dedue took a swig of beer from the bottle at his side before continuing. “And it’s annoying.”

“You’re so mean to me. Why do you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you. You hate you.”

Sylvain let out a groan, which crescendoed up into the deep night sky. “Are you serious right now? I don’t want to get into this tonight. Can’t we just talk about _your_ deepest, darkest insecurities tonight?”

“We only do that on Thursdays. That's not how this works.” Dedue finished his beer. 

“How _what_ works? Is this a thing, now?” Sylvain wailed, exasperated. He stood abruptly and leaned against the railing.

Dedue sighed. “You were acting strange tonight. I was worried.” 

A beat of silence, followed by the click of a lighter. 

“Don’t act like I didn’t see you leave halfway through, either,” Sylvain muttered, a lit cigarette between his lips. “This is a two way street.”

Dedue stood and walked over to Sylvain, who handed him the cigarette. He took a long drag, watching the smoke curl into the air before finally speaking. 

“Well, your car is in the wrong lane.”

— 

When Sylvain was nine, he got in trouble with Glenn for calling Felix a fag during an argument. After Felix ran off with tears in his eyes, Glenn asked Sylvain if he knew what the word meant, to which he responded he didn’t, it was just something Miklan called him a lot. He remembered Glenn sighing, mussing up his hair, and kindly asking him to never say it again. 

After that day, Miklan had curiously stopped saying it, but in exchange, his punches landed a bit harder.

The next time that Sylvain heard someone say that word would be five years later. Miklan had walked out of his room, ready to go out, and their dad peered over his newspaper and said he looked like a fag. Miklan said thank you, and slammed the front door on his way out.

Sylvain really did believe Miklan was a good person, despite 95% of their interactions being negative. Sometimes he was really nice, like when he would let Sylvain sit on the floor of his room, and they would listen to whatever new album Miklan had swiped that day on his turntable. _Around The World In A Day_ in 1985, _Licensed To Ill_ in 1986, _Mother’s Milk_ in 1989. Sometimes he would drive Sylvain out to the flea market and let him pick something. An orange juicer, a denim jacket, a mannequin head.

Then there was the rest of it. Beating Sylvain after their dad finished beating them for playing devil music. Abandoning Sylvain at the market because he was asking too many questions, his car leaving a cloud of dust as it disappeared into the setting sun. Still, even today, when Sylvain is reminded of his brother, the good memories surface first, the rest shoveled under like a corpse beneath tulips. The associated feelings, however, manifested in the worst possible ways, all of which were beyond his perception.

In 1989, Sylvain woke up in the ER, and no one has told him why to this day. All he knew was that two of Miklan’s friends ended up in jail, and Miklan disappeared for two weeks. Miklan came back somehow even worse than before; as Sylvain grew older, and stronger, Miklan’s abuse evolved from physical to verbal. To his delight, Miklan discovered that his words left deeper lacerations on Sylvain than any blade could. 

Mom left soon after Miklan’s return, packing up the little that she had and retreating to the edge of the state. On her last night in Joshua Tree, she took Sylvain’s teary face between her hands and looked him in the eyes. She told him how much she loved him, but Mommy wasn’t happy here. She asked him if he was happy here.

He really wasn’t, but leaving would be pyrrhic. He had too much to lose.

“I think I’m happy.”

She smiled forlornly. “I’m glad. Still, you know you have the option to come stay with me whenever you want, okay? It doesn’t have to be forever, it can be just a few days if that’s what you want.”

Sylvain nodded slowly, eyes downcast. His dad said a lot of bad things about Los Angeles, and Miklan had always wanted to go there, so those were two strikes in Sylvain’s book. Leaving his friends was the third. However, when he looked up into his mom’s pained face, her hands gripping his shoulders, he reconsidered.

“Can I bring my friends when I visit?”

His mom sighed in relief, as if she were holding her breath in anticipation of his answer. “Yes, love. You can bring as many of your friends as you want, any time.”

He filed that promise away for later. Then she was gone, the early morning sun creeping up to meet the stars beyond the horizon, leaving her son behind in the care of the careless. For a while, Sylvain followed behind, walking aimlessly over the cracked earth until he was too tired to keep up. 

It was okay. He had more than enough reasons to remain in Joshua Tree: Sylvain still had four friendly faces left in his life.

— 

“You okay there, buddy?”

It was September 23rd, 2000, and Sylvain was facedown on the floor. His cheek stuck to the chipped black paint. He rolled onto his back.

“Oh, shit. _Sylvain?”_

The world was coming back into focus, but the room was dimly lit, so not much changed. Writhing silhouettes framed his view. First eight, then four, then six, then settling on four. All of the silhouettes had tits. One pair was accompanied with a familiar face.

_“Ingrid?_ What the fuck?” He harshly rubbed his face. “Ingrid ‘n three hot chicks. I’m toootally still knocked out.”

“Yup, it’s you, alright.” Ingrid reached her hand down and helped him up to his feet, before he immediately plopped himself down on a well-worn couch. Sylvain looked her up and down.

“Damn. Your hair is fucking _gone.”_

“It seems like you’re pretty fucking gone, too,” she scoffed. “Didn’t imagine our reunion going like this. What happened?” Ingrid and her bodacious entourage settled on the couch around him, the three paying him no mind.

Well, what _did_ happen? Three-quarters of the time, Sylvain wouldn’t be able to tell you. This time, however, he had some semblance of competence.

“I uh, fuck. There’s an interesting cocktail of stuff in m’ body right now. ‘S gonna take a nap on the couch but I missed.” He leaned into Ingrid’s shoulder and caught a whiff of something pleasant, but Sylvain couldn’t recall his extensive knowledge of womens’ perfume at the moment; the thought of his Ingrid wearing perfume made him chuckle. His laughter was short-lived, because he looked up and was met with an appraising glare.

“Okay. We need to talk about all this,” Ingrid waved her hands over him, “but we’ll save that for later. Doesn’t your band go on in ten?” 

Sylvain recognized the approaching echo of a familiar pair of platform heel boots. He lolled his head around, and saw the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life, strutting towards the couch. He told her this every day.

“There you are. Time to go. Now. Excuse me, ladies.”

The woman flashed Ingrid and the babes a brilliant smile as she yanked Sylvain up by the collar of his flannel. The preshow chatter of the crowd grew louder as the two drew closer to the stage wings. After what felt like an eternity, since Sylvain's brain was doing cartwheels, the two rounded the corner to find Ashe, Dedue, and Mercedes.

“You need to quit running off like that,” Dedue sighed, fully exhausted but void of admonishment. Without looking up from the setlist in his hand, he handed Sylvain his guitar in the other. Sylvain stood on his tiptoes to crane his neck over Dedue’s shoulder.

“Aww, we’re not playing the ‘No Scrubs’ cover? I loooove that cover. You know I love that cover.” Sylvain slung his arms around Dedue’s neck and pressed his face into his back.

“The last time we played that, you and I were both arrested.” Sylvain thought he heard Ashe mumble something like ‘cease and desist’ under his breath behind him. “Also, have you even looked at tonight’s setlist, Sylvain?”

“I’m looking at it right now, baby.” He plants a quick kiss on Dedue’s cheek, eliciting another exasperated sigh from him before he shook Sylvain off. 

Ashe strode quickly past him. “Quit it. You can be a whore in three and a half minutes. Tune your guitar.” 

Sylvain followed instructions like a good boy and squatted down to fiddle with his guitar. As mundane a task it was, music was one of the few things that could sober Sylvain up. One of the few things he believed he was good at. He treated every effort that went into it like a ritual. The thrum of the metal strings calmed him somewhat, but upon realizing that he was the slightest bit uncalm in the first place, Sylvain started to panic. 

“Stop panicking.” He whipped his head around to look at Dorothea, who was draped against a wooden post littered with flyers. As per usual, she looked like a deity, dressed to the nines and glowing in the ultraviolet backstage lights. 

“I’m not panicking. _You’re_ panicking.”

“I’m really not.” She straightened up and strutted to the end of the wing, just inches out of the audience’s view. “Are we ready, boys?”

It was only a few people, like five. Hundred. Five hundred people. That’s fine. It’s not like they hadn’t performed in front of this many people before. They hadn’t. The last thing Sylvain remembers is the blare of the MC on the speakers, the roar of the crowd, and Mercedes’ beaming face shining in the dark.

It happened every time, the immediate amnesia that settled the second he walked offstage. Sylvain wished he could remember his performances (for the most part), but if he didn’t detach his brain from his body while performing, he would fall through the floor. Not only because of nerves, but because it was the only way for him to be at his best. He didn’t think about the words he sang, but he felt them belt from his heart and coat his throat. His guitar felt more familiar as a limb than his own two hands. Also, it turns out that when you take the Sylvain out of Sylvain, he’s much more entertaining; a reasonable chunk of the band’s clout came from Sylvain’s presence as a frontman. It also helped that they were a good fucking band. 

The final chord rang out, and Sylvain was back on earth, the applause filling his ears. He glimpsed back at his bandmates: Dedue wiped at his forehead with the hem of his shirt, Ashe tripped over his drum set as he stood, and Dorothea laughed at him, her cheeks rosy. The four linked arms, stared out into the bellowing crowd, and bowed. 

— 

“It won’t turn off.”

“Have you tried pressing the ‘off’ button?”

“Can you stop being annoying for one second and help me with this?”

Sylvain laughed, and it reverberated off the canyon walls. One of the wonderful things about living in a desert is that you can blast music as loud as you want, and no one would ever know. If Felix and Sylvain decimated the ecosystem, and no one was around to hear it, would they make a sound?

It was September 23, 1991, and fortunately they weren’t alone, and Felix really couldn’t turn the fucking generator off. Ingrid, Sylvain, and Dimitri stood from their tarp and closed in on the machine. 

“Geez, not _all_ of you. Back up. Dima, stay.” Felix batted Sylvain and Ingrid away without looking up from his work. The two exchanged looks, Ingrid sitting down on Sylvain’s amp, and Sylvain settling on the tarp. They watched as Felix and Dimitri crouched next to the generator, whispering things that were lost in the vast night sky. 

It had been this way for a while: Felix spending more and more time with Dimitri, and less and less time with Sylvain. It made sense: the two were closer in age, and they saw each other constantly since the families of the Chief of Police and Chief Justice were bound to be entangled. Plus, Dimitri was the new kid on the block, and Sylvain had been around for all of Felix's life. Sylvain was boring. Sylvain tried really hard not to think much of it, but he couldn’t help but glow green every time Felix and Dimitri shared a smile.

It’s not like Sylvain didn’t like his other friends. It’s just that Felix was his _best_ friend, and he’d felt this way all his life. Now that they were older, Sylvain didn’t like to wonder if the converse was true or not.

“That was pretty good. A lot of people showed up.” Ingrid tapped his knee with her foot, and he snapped out of his thoughts.

“Would’ve been a bigger crowd if you and Dima played with us,” Sylvain suggested. “We could use a pretty face like yours up there.”

“I can’t play anything. Dima thinks your guitar and Felix’s bass are the same instrument. And I told you, it would be weird,” Ingrid grumbled. “You and Felix have...something. You go so well together, and I feel like joining in would mess it up.”

Sylvain’s pulse quickened, but he swallowed it down by being a child. “Sounds pretty gay when you put it that way.”

Ingrid’s eyes widened in terror, her head whipping around to look for eavesdroppers, despite being in the middle of the desert. “Don’t say things like that, Sylvain. It’s not funny.”

“What? Gay?” When she flinched at the word, Sylvain shouted it against the canyon walls, managing to do it three times before Ingrid clobbered him. She prodded at the crucifix that hung around her neck. It was a lot easier to stomach the fear of hell if you just made fun of it. 

A frustrated sigh turned into a groan from behind them. “It’s not turning off.” Felix paced, yanking on his ponytail. Dimitri stayed squatted next to the generator, but it was apparent that he had no idea what the fuck he was doing. He had a suggestion anyway. “Why don’t you just wait until it runs out of power?”

“That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. Am I just supposed to sit out here in the middle of nowhere, at night, and wait for it to die?” 

“Well, we can’t turn it off, so you don’t have a lot of options,” Ingrid chided. Felix groaned again and pressed his hands to his face, pacing faster. Felix moved around a lot when he was genuinely stressed. Sylvain shifted on the tarp.

“Don’t worry, it’s probably only got an hour or two left on it. I’ll stay out here and wait it out.” Sylvain smiled.

Felix scoffed. “Why would you do that? It’s my generator. I need to take it home.” He walked over to the generator, blocking Sylvain’s access like a wimpy goalie. “Also, you’d be stuck out here all alone.”

“Just leave your garage door open, and I’ll cart it over when I come back.” He stood, walked up to Felix, and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “And sometimes I like being alone.”

Felix ducked out of his grip. “Liar. I’m staying. Go home.” 

He chucked Sylvain’s jacket in his direction. When Sylvain retorted, saying Felix would be eaten by the wolves if he was left alone, Ingrid and Dimitri packed up, and left before Felix said there weren’t any wolves in fucking Joshua Tree. The two boys stopped arguing, since the prospect of being stuck out here alone was starting to look less and less appealing.

This was the best possible set of circumstances for the occasion. Ingrid and Sylvain would’ve been chewing each other out within the first twenty minutes, Sylvain and Dimitri would stumble over conflicting topics before falling silent for the rest of the night. Here, with his back grounded in the earth, Felix’s head rested on his chest, and the long, slow howl of the wind above them, Sylvain felt like he had the world in his hands.

He was allowed to enjoy it, but just for a little while. A poisonous thought worked its way to the front of his brain. Felix wouldn’t do this with Dimitri, right? He would only be like this with Sylvain, their friendship was closer, more special. God, the intrusive thoughts kept coming, ruining the peace he felt and making his pulse race. Sylvain tried to push them all to the back of his mind.

“Can I play you something?” Felix asked abruptly, disrupting the bout of silence, which had been comfortable until Sylvain’s conscience had started writhing.

Sylvain sat up, propping Felix’s head with his elbow so he wouldn’t roll into the dirt. “Play me something? Like a song?”

Felix nodded, his lips pursed. “It’s not done yet, but…I need your guitar.” 

This was new. Normally, whenever Felix had ideas for a song, Sylvain had to worm them out of him. He never offered to play for people out of the blue like this. Sylvain nodded eagerly, and Felix shuffled over to Sylvain’s case. He undid the clasps and pulled out the guitar, while Sylvain hooked the amp back up to the generator. They met halfway so Sylvain could plug him in. A magnetic buzz. He sat cross-legged as he looked up at Felix, who was fiddling with the knobs on the guitar. He grinned sheepishly when Felix caught him staring.

“Quit looking at me like that,” he grumbled.

“What? I’m not allowed to be excited? This might be the best song I’ll ever hear in my life.”

Felix sat down so that he faced Sylvain, their knees touching. “It’s just a stupid song.”

Sylvain knew it wasn’t just a stupid song, because Felix poured his soul into everything he wrote. All the words he couldn’t say, all the feelings he couldn’t express, were clear in his music. Sylvain always felt lucky that Felix trusted him enough to be comfortable sharing these things with him, baring his heart for just a moment. Everyone else just got Fleetwood Mac covers. Those were still pretty good.

For a few minutes, Felix just sat there, eyes downcast, with his hands in position to play, as if he were waiting for a green light. He wet his lips. Sylvain could hear his shallow breaths in the stark silence of the canyon. Felix finally looked up when Sylvain patted his knee, hazel eyes shining.

“Don’t worry, Fe. It’s only me.”

— 

“I can see your appeal. The band, that is. Not you.”

Ingrid chugged her beer as Sylvain considered wringing her neck. He was relatively sobered up now, three beers in being as sober as he gets. The bar at the back of the venue was relatively packed, since the next band wouldn’t be on for another half hour. Still, only a handful of girls came to bother them, and most were there for Ingrid. Ouch.

“Our appeal? Does that mean you don’t actually like us?” 

She laughed, setting her bottle down on the bar. She licked her lips, staring at the crowd ahead, mulling over whatever the hell she was going to say next. Sylvain fidgeted with a bottlecap.

“I don’t _not_ like your music. It’s just...weird to see you like that. Like this.” Ingrid gestured in his direction, then stretched her elbows back against the bar. Like this, when she found him plastered on the floor backstage. Like this, when he couldn’t hold a conversation for the past thirty minutes, up until now. Like this, when he siphoned himself out of her life and played dead like a dog. Sylvain was a trash fire. Sylvain’s life sounded like Where It’s At by Beck.

“It’s been a long time, Syl. Really long time.”

Climbing barren, stumpy trees and falling flat into red earth. Trying to synchronize pressing down on the pedal and tapping the cymbal. Sitting on a tarp. Her hair was gone, but we knew that already. The crucifix was gone, too. 

“Yeah.” Sylvain pursed his lips and drummed his fingers on the table. Ingrid continued.

“I mean, I didn’t even know you were in SF. I look up your number every June, and you never pick up. It’s been years, Sylvain.” She leaned against the counter, head in her hand. “You could’ve at least—“

“Yeah, but I’m not the one who fucked off to Tennessee,” Sylvain snapped.

Ingrid fell silent, her eyebrows raised. She sighed, and picked up her bottle. “Fair.”

They clinked their beers and took a swig. Conversation was less like pulling teeth after that. A familiar cavity left unfilled.

“I really did miss you, you know,” Sylvain said. “I just wasn’t at my best a few years back.”

“Is this your best, then?” 

— 

“Hey, buddy. Oh, wait, don’t move. Nurse? Nurse?”

November 3, 1989. Sylvain felt a hand gently press him back down to the hospital bed before he fully woke up. Then, he registered the pain, the soreness that encompassed his little body. He opened his eyes.

“Glenn.” 

Glenn nodded, his smile tight. “Yeah, it’s me. How are you feeling?”

Sylvain blinked a few times, trying to dislodge the sand from his eyes. “I feel funny.”

“Yeah? You might feel funny for a while, the doctors gave you—”

“Why am I here?”

Sylvain kind of already knew, but the memories were fuzzy. Glenn fell silent, pursing his lips. His eyes shone. “I think you should get some more rest.”

“Was it Miklan?” Sylvain knit his brows together. “Why won’t you tell me?”

His response was immediate. “Sylvain, I want you to know that if you ever need anything, or if anything bad happens to you, you can come to me,” he stated. “Even if you and Felix fight, and aren’t friends anymore, whatever happens, I’ve got you. Always. Okay? We’re family.”

The nurse walked in, ushering Glenn out of his seat, beckoning him closer to whisper something in his ear. He nodded, and started toward the door.

Sylvain murmured, confused, “But I’m not your brother.”

Glenn stopped, then smiled before walking out.

“To me, you are.”

— 

The lights went down, and the bar was emptied as people clamored toward the stage. 

“Huh. These guys must really be the shit, seeing how everyone flooded back in here.” Sylvain tipped his bottle to point at the tightly packed crowd.

Ingrid rolled her eyes. “Hah. Very funny.”

“Hey now, no need to be rude,” Sylvain raised his hands defensively. “I’ve heard of them, I just haven’t gotten around to listening to their stuff. I guess I will tonight, though.”

Sylvain leaned back against the bar. Ingrid stared at him blankly. 

“You’re joking, right?” 

When Sylvain responded with nothing but a befuddled frown, she chuckled lowly, shaking her head. 

“My god, Sylvain. Holy shit. You know this band, Sylvain. You _know_ this band.”

Before he could retort, the crowd erupted in cheers, and Ingrid pulled him out of his seat and to the back of the crowd. 

The band was dressed simply, clad in black for the most part. Their drummer had her bright orange hair in low pigtails, her lips painted red. 

When Sylvain’s eyes came to rest on the guitarist, his stomach lurched. 

Dimitri was nearly unrecognizable, with broad shoulders and chiseled features. His eye was missing, in its place a jagged scar, but with a jerk of his head his bangs shielded it like a curtain. He was a classical sculpture with moss in the cracks.

The lead singer stepped up to the microphone, giving it a few experimental taps. Sylvain couldn’t bring himself to look at him, but he didn’t have to. He knew that voice better than his own.

“Hi. We’re the Blue Lions, and we’re here to blow your fucking brains out. You ready?”

Sylvain wasn’t ready, he wasn’t even processing thoughts, but Felix was already counting to four.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for giving this fic a try! i hope you enjoyed what we've got here so far. i've had this idea in my head since september, so i'm so happy to finally start posting it!  
> chapter title is the pink floyd album, which came out the year sylvain was born!


	2. No Need to Argue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Recalling a murder.

This was better than Christmas. This was better than sex. For Ingrid, at least. 

“Fix your face, you’re gonna get lockjaw.” She patted Sylvain’s chin so it went back to the place it was supposed to be, which was not on the floor. His mouth felt like styrofoam. His face was like that for the entire show, apparently. Ingrid used her entire Kodak roll on his stupid fucking face. 

Ingrid was also under the impression that Sylvain _wanted_ to reunite with all of his childhood best friends. It would’ve been easier to set the venue aflame if she wanted him to combust that badly. Dorothea doused him in gasoline when he made it backstage.

“The other bands booked a room at the club down the street. How do I look?” Dorothea looked up from her compact mirror. It was a rhetorical question. Sylvain was sweating.

“The other bands? Like, _all_ of them?” 

“Yup,” she emphasized the ‘p’ with a smack of her lips. “All two of them. I thought you were good at math, babe.” 

He was good at math, good enough to estimate how fast a taxi needed to plow him so he was too fucked to go to the club, but not fucked enough to die. Should he go for a motorcycle? 

“You know, I might just turn in for the night. Feeling pretty drained.” He yawned to make a point of it.

“Oh Sylvain, you’ll have such a great time!” Mercedes called from some hallway somewhere. “It’ll be like a reunion for you.”

Yeah.

Dedue looked up from his spot on the couch. “Sylvain José Gautier turning down the promise of free booze? I never thought I’d see the day.” 

Sylvain blanked. “Wait, it’s _free?”_

Here’s the plan. Sylvain snakes around the perimeter of the club, avoiding all doorways. He locates the bar and takes however many shots he can fit in three minutes. Snag a phone number or two. Ingrid has a small bladder, so he’ll wait by the women’s restroom like a creep until she comes around, officially bids her adieu, and makes his grand escape with a handle of whatever under his arm. Maybe even a basket of wings.

The plan was going splendidly until, well, the first step, because Ingrid intercepted him the second he stepped through the club entrance.

“Hey, glad you made it! I was 80% sure you were gonna bail,” she shouted over the blaring music. 

He shouted back, “Would’ve been 100% if Thea hadn’t dragged me by the hair.”

Ingrid’s eyes lit up. “Is Thea your hot pianist?” Sylvain got a groan in before she continued, “is she, you know?” She raised her brow and widened her eyes, as if that made anything clearer. However, it _was_ clear that she was already tipsy.

“You can find that out yourself,” he said. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom real quick, I’ll meet up with you guys after.”

He was most definitely _not_ going to meet up with those guys after. Sylvain was going to pull out Plan B and just straight up leave without a trace. However, just as before, Ingrid sussed him out.

“No, come say hi first, and _then_ you can go piss,” she smirked. Even after all these years, she could read him like a picture book. He thought that after all that'd happened, he’d be at least Narnia level.

He didn't have an out. He resigned and followed Ingrid and his band through the slew of people, and to a door in the corner by the bar. Ingrid opened the door, and Sylvain’s three bandmates filed through it; he stood like a flagpole until Ingrid pulled him in by the elbow.

The room was dimly lit, but bright enough to clearly make out the details of the setting and the people in it. Unintentional mood lighting. Kinda sexy. The walls were a deep plum, or at least they were in the few inches that weren’t covered in band posters, photographs, and really everything else under the sun that could be put on paper; the longer Sylvain looked, the more sure he was that people literally put whatever the hell they wanted on the walls. A mattress store ad, for example. In the center of the room were two couches and an assortment of mismatched armchairs and beanbags, all circling a coffee table. There was a crap ton of alcohol on the table, and normally Sylvain would call that the best part of the room.

Tonight, however, the best part of the room was that Felix and Dimitri were not in it. At least, not yet.

Lounging on the furniture were the three women with Ingrid that found Sylvain incapacitated on the floor, which Sylvain now realized had to be Ingrid’s bandmates. They looked like Skittles. One had a Fanta orange pixie cut, a gazillion piercings, and a red flannel that Sylvain was pretty sure was the same one he was wearing. Another had bubblegum pink pigtails down to her ass, and wore full body fishnets with a latex tube dress, and matching boots. The last girl had a haircut pretty similar to Sylvain’s, except her curly mop was lavender, along with everything else she wore, from her dilapidated hoodie to her Vans.

The second the door opened, Orange and Pink jumped up to greet them, while Purple opted for a small wave from her beanbag.

“Insatiable, meet the girls. Girls, meet Insatiable,” Ingrid announced. Sylvain was really hoping she would say the band's name at some point because he'd already asked and forgotten five times. Orange introduced herself as Leonie with a clasped hand, and Pink became Hilda after a suffocating hug. Bernie smiled and simply said her name once everyone settled in a spot. Sylvain took the armchair, since it had its back to the doorway.

“You know,” Hilda started, “we’ve been chasing you guys forever! We almost caught you last time we were in SF, but we never seemed to be in the same place at the same time.”

“You wanted to meet us?” Ashe asked, puzzled. 

“Hell yeah, we did. There’s a load of buzz going around. You guys are turning shit upside down. Also helped that Ingrid has a thing for you,” Leonie tilted her chin up in Sylvain’s direction.

Before Ingrid could create a crater, Sylvain decided to put in a good word for her. “It’s not like that, we’re childhood friends. Besides, I’m not exactly Ingrid’s... _type.”_ He stuck his tongue out.

Dorothea took the bait. “Ooh, what is your type, then?” She leaned forward from the couch, her elbow resting on her knee. 

Ingrid stuttered, “Uh...I like...people with personality.”

That was the vaguest shit Sylvain had ever heard in his life, but he was pretty sure Dorothea got the hint. She leaned back with a glint in her eye. “I agree,” she smiled. Ingrid looked like she was going to either burst into song, or puke.

Hilda explained that they hailed from Seattle, a mythical land filled with guys who still looked like Chris Cornell. Hilda is asked if she knew who Mother Love Bone was at every party. Sylvain asked her if she knew who Mother Love Bone was. He got yelled at. It was that easy. It warmed the atmosphere up with everyone’s laughs, save for Hilda rolling her eyes and sinking into the couch. 

“So, what brings you lovelies all the way down here?” Dorothea quipped.

Ingrid cleared her throat. “We’re a few months out from starting the tour for our new album. The first show is here in SF, so we thought we'd just hang around and do some local gigs before it all starts.”

“Congrats,” Ashe mused, and the others nodded in assent. “We’re on the down low right now, just playing local gigs and stuff like that.”

Ashe had always been a wary guy, so Sylvain wasn’t surprised that he had forgone mentioning that they were currently putting their first album together as well. They were nearing the end of the recording phase, and starting to mix what they had finished. 

Dorothea seemed ready to blurt this out, but at that moment, the doorknob jiggled. Sylvain wanted to be the carpet.

While everyone waved and stood to greet The Blue Lions, Sylvain remained glued to his seat, casually looking away in a very un-casual manner. He heard a bubbly female voice, followed by one that sounded like an ATM. The first belonged to their tiny redhead drummer, the second to a seafoam green-haired stranger with eyes like dinner plates.

“Is Syl—?” uttered a deep voice, but with an inflection unmistakable as Dimitri’s. His thought was cut short when he walked beyond the armchair, and likely saw a shock of Sylvain’s hair out of the corner of his eye. 

_“Sylvain,”_ he breathed, and it was much too late to do anything about anything, so Sylvain stood up to greet him. The Dimitri he remembered was very curt, so when he pulled Sylvain into a bone-crunching hug, he was, at the very least, shocked. He tried not to squirm. His arms were pinned to his sides, so he couldn't even do the awkward pat-on-the-back move.

“Hey, it’s been a long time, Dimitri,” he grunted, as the air was squeezed out of his lungs. At some point, Dimitri released him, and Sylvain plopped back on his feet, staring at the stranger that stared right back. Goldfish.

In that moment, Sylvain realized how little he had been able to make out from his spot in the audience. Dimitri had grown into himself, no longer a gangly teen, but a broad-chested man that now slightly exceeded Sylvain’s height, and that pissed him off. Sylvain felt a pang of sadness when he realized that Dimitri was the spitting image of his father. However, beyond the shaggy blonde curtains of hair, his sharp features treaded on sallow. The ghost of his father.

Sylvain had never _really_ been upset with Dimitri for what had happened all those years ago. They had been friends, albeit not very close, up until the day he left. For a long time, Sylvain spent sleepless nights wondering how Dimitri was doing, and considered calling him many times, even if it meant he might have to talk to Felix too. He never did. Now, as he glimpsed at the puckered scar over his right eye, Sylvain wished that he had.

He allowed himself a small, true smile. The faint warmth of their reunion was quickly stomped out when Sylvain saw someone over Dimitri’s shoulder.

Glenn looked like Rodrigue. Felix looked like nobody. Mrs. Fraldarius died in childbirth. See what that does to a kid’s guilt complex. Nonetheless, the Felix that Sylvain was looking at now was simultaneously familiar and unrecognizable.

Sylvain was completely sure that Felix hadn’t grown an inch since they last saw each other, but he was sturdy, his lithe frame now well-toned beneath his loose t-shirt. His hair was still long, but it was shorter, now cascading just to his shoulder blades in tangled black waves. 

We could sit here and describe Felix all day, but what matters right now is how shellshocked Sylvain was by the resurrection of his closest friend, who had just spent the last eight years out of his reach, busy transforming into a man he no longer knew. Eight years where Sylvain wasn’t by his side.

Is it possible to fit years of emotional disorientation and deafening radio silence into a single greeting? 

Felix cleared his throat. “Hey.”

Guess so.

“Hey,” Sylvain replied.

And they sat down, Felix on the couch furthest away. Right next to Dimitri. 

Sylvain left Joshua Tree years ago, but he lugged his baggage with him. A true hoarder. Surely Ingrid would let him go to the bathroom now.

— 

Let’s watch the ball drop. It’s just like a count-off. One, two, three, four.

One. You know when the flight attendant goes on the intercom and asks if there’s a doctor on the plane? It was kind of like that, except instead of a plane, it was a house, and instead of a doctor, it was a cop, and instead of a dying passenger, it was a boy.

Break-ins in the low desert were usually done by teens who just wanted to skate in rich peoples' swimming pools while they were out of town. They just don't really happen. Everyone is your neighbor, most everyone is your friend. However, when you’re the new district attorney, there are a few eccentrics who are _definitely_ not your friend.

On April 5, 1992, around 10PM, Glenn swung by the Blaiddyd’s to discuss the upcoming prosecution. The criminal on trial actually wouldn’t make it to court, because he was breaking down the back door of the Blaiddyd residence instead. 

Mr. Blaiddyd died first, and it could’ve been left at that, but the killer wasn’t a fan of leaving loose ends. He bludgeoned Mrs. Blaiddyd, and was about to start climbing the stairs, where Dimitri slept, when Glenn attacked him from the hallway. His bullet lodged nicely in the killer’s ribs, but not as nicely as the knife through Glenn’s stomach.

The last thing Glenn saw was a pair of blue eyes at the top of the stairs, waking up to a nightmare. The last thing he said was _go._

Exactly two years later, Kurt Cobain died; he took two towels out of the closet before he shot himself. Glenn made sure to collapse on the kitchen tiles. It’s hard to wash blood out of a carpet.

The crime was in the news for months, but Dimitri wasn’t around to see it. Rodrigue Fraldarius hauled him up to Oakland. Two.

That was right after the funeral. The killer was still alive for a minute after Dimitri fled, spending his last moments making sure Glenn didn’t get a cozy coffin like the Blaiddyds did. His urn sat on a pedestal in front of his portrait. All in a day's work. Just a little blood on the carpet.

— 

Sylvain gripped the sides of the bathroom sink and stared at his reflection in the mirror. He only had a minute left before his time away would become suspicious, and his company would think something had gone terribly wrong. Sylvain _wished_ that something could go terribly wrong.

Sylvain briefly considered creating a small fire.

He wanted to scream, but opted for a frustrated sigh instead. Wrenching on the sink, Sylvain splashed water on his face, then rubbed it dry with the hem of his flannel.

For the most part, Sylvain had successfully suppressed his insecurity over Felix’s relationship with Dimitri for the past few years, because he couldn’t afford to spend every waking moment wondering what could be happening between them. He's had them both shoved into the back corner of his brain all this time. 

The worst part was that even after all these years apart, it was still there. The dread of not being Felix's apex. He wouldn't admit it. He wanted to vomit, but he hadn’t eaten since who knows when. There were claws gripping his overworked heart, threatening to pierce it and let him bleed out on the floor. 

Honestly, that sounded heavenly compared to the inevitable reality of Sylvain walking right back into the gladiator ring. He did it anyways, because what the fuck else was there to do? Crawl into the air vent and die inconspicuously? It would most definitely be conspicuous.

All eyes were on Sylvain when he opened the door.

“Did I miss anything?” He tried coolly, but his voice came out gravelly.

“Yup. We’re spilling secrets, and you owe me two shots,” Dorothea chided, handing him a red cup filled with what seemed to be a full inch of who knows what. Every liquor smelled like drain cleaner. This could be drain cleaner.

“Wow, you sure move fast,” Sylvain sighed, wide eyes peering into the cup. “Then again, I expect nothing less from my Thea.”

He tipped his cup in her direction, and threw back the contents. It wasn't drain cleaner! 

“Good boy,” Ingrid crooned, significantly less coherent than she’d been before Sylvain had left. 

Sylvain spent the next four shots avoiding any and all conversation with anyone. He overheard snippets of other conversations across the room. Hilda's dress cost $1,300, and her shoes $2,000. Annette detests traditional grip. What happened to Dimitri's eye?

He wouldn't say.

Everyone was now a little too comfortable with each other, and the invasive questions were worming in.

"So, how long have you two been together?" Leonie motioned between Sylvain and Dedue. She did not seem the slightest bit tipsy.

Each member of Insatiable had a different reaction, all at the same time. Dedue said, we aren't dating. Sylvain said, we've been dating for thirteen years. Dorothea was laughing her ass off. Ashe was not conscious.

"We're roommates. We met a few years back in L.A." Dedue said.

Hilda hummed dreamily. "That's a long time! What has your loving relationship been through?"

“Geez, I don’t even know anymore. We’ve been through a ton of shit,” Sylvain mused, counting on his fingers. “Moved across the state together in my F150. Dicked around and got degrees from SFSU. Got an apartment. Swore our eternal love and friendship for all eternity.”

“You did that. I didn’t do that. Still, we’ve done a lot together,” Dedue conceded.

Dorothea hummed. "Seems like the only thing you guys _haven't_ done is fuck."

"We did that too." Dedue sipped his beer.

Ashe became reanimated and leapt up from the couch, pointing a finger at each of the two. “YOU GUYS HAD _SEX?”_

Sylvain held his hands up in defense. “Only, like, halfway! It was not a _complete_ fucking.”

Dedue nodded in agreement.

Ashe clutched his head, staring at Sylvain with unbridled terror. “What the hell does that even _mean?”_ He screamed.

Leonie followed up, “Are you _still_ fucking?”

“Now, wouldn’t _you_ like to kn—owch!” 

Sylvain yelped when Dedue leaned over from the beanbag and yanked on his hair.

Dedue spoke up. “It was a one-time ordeal. Or, half-time ordeal.”

Sylvain assented, but everyone continued to stare him down. He groaned exasperatedly.

"Fine. Basically, about halfway through, we kind of just…made extended eye contact, and mutually agreed to stop, not because the sex wasn’t good, but because any sexual or romantic involvement wasn’t worth risking our pre-existing beautiful relationship.” His words were a slurred rush towards the end.

Mercedes asked, “You got all of that simply from looking at each other?”

“Yes.” Dedue gave a thumbs up.

“We have the mothership connection. Mothership is our brains.” Sylvain aggressively tapped his own forehead. Sylvain should drink some water.

Dedue stroked his chin. “Not our hearts?”

“Oh my _god,_ that’s so much better.”

Felix decided to chime in. "What made you guys want to move up here?"

Sylvain's inebriated brain registered Felix as a threat.

He turned his head to look at him. "You care, now?"

Felix's expression immediately changed. Defensive. Maybe even hurt.

"Uh, yeah."

Sylvain barked an ugly laugh. "Yeah, okay."

"Did I do something?" Felix muttered, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion.

This is what set Sylvain off.

"Oh my god. That's fucking hilarious. Did you _do_ something?" He sneered.

"What the hell is your problem?"

Sylvain was getting a bit too loud. He stood. "You _know_ what my problem is!"

"No, I really don't!" Felix matched his volume, also standing.

Before Sylvain could make things worse, he was being dragged by the elbow towards the door. He caught a glimpse of Dimitri's heartbroken face on his way out.

— 

Felix had always had a little trouble with schoolwork during his childhood. Glenn and Sylvain had always offered to help him, but he angrily refused each time, because the way they tried to teach him made him feel stupid. He knew he wasn’t stupid, but it was annoying when people treated him like he was. He expressed that to his teachers and his father, and was labeled as badly tempered. It didn't make sense; Glenn was the one with a shitty temper. Felix was just being honest.

Nonetheless, nothing was done to accommodate him. Felix was dumb, and Felix was problematic. Felix was on academic probation and in detention for existing, and Glenn getting shanked didn't exactly help. Felix did not graduate from high school. It’s such a shame that Glenn died. He was Rodrigue’s only hope, his legacy. 

See, nobody should say that shit, right? Pit a kid against a corpse and watch him run in place? But Sylvain heard that five times in passing conversation at the funeral reception. Felix disappeared halfway through, and Sylvain found him in the garden behind the venue, sitting in the dust, under a tree.

At first, Sylvain kept out of sight behind the archway. Maybe Felix just needed time alone. Sylvain wasn’t really good at providing that.

“You wanna know what just happened?” Felix spoke to the air, so Sylvain materialized, approaching slowly.

“The old man said ‘he died a hero.’” Felix was scratching up dirt by the fistful. “He’s dead, but it’s fine, because he stayed to kill the bad guy, right? He died so that fucking cunt didn’t have to. He's a _hero."_

Sylvain winced. “Felix, Dimitri isn’t—” 

“What is he then, Sylvain?” His tone was leveled, almost conversational. “A survivor? A miracle? A blessing? And if you say his name again, I _swear_ to god...”

Felix didn’t finish his thought. Sylvain mulled over that for a bit, the silence interrupted only by Felix's nails against the ground.

“I’m sorry. You deserve to be upset.”

Felix had nothing to say to that. He picked dirt from his fingernails for the next five minutes before speaking. It was more like a whisper.

“Sylvain.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m trying so hard.” Felix was thirteen years old, with enough trauma to be a textbook example.

“I know, Fe.” 

Sylvain opened his palm, facing up from the dirt. An invitation.

“You don’t have to bottle it up. It’s okay to show how you’re feeling on the inside. Even if it makes a scene.”

“That’s what they all expect me to do. It just proves their point about me,” Felix mumbled into his bunched knees.

Lost. It wasn't right, it wasn't Felix, or at least it shouldn't be. Sylvain wanted to reach out to him and pull all of that doubt out of his heart, crumple it into a ball and bat it out to sea with a chunk of driftwood. He was ready to pull out all the stops.

“My mom lives in L.A,” Sylvain blurted. Felix looked up from his fingers, puzzled, then down to Sylvain’s open hand. Sylvain’s breathing was erratic. He took a deep breath and swallowed before continuing.

“She said I…uh, that I could move in with her at any time. She said I could have friends over. I know she’d understand, she loves you, a-and she and I can explain to your—”

“Are you asking me to move to L.A. with you?” 

Felix stared at Sylvain, expression indecipherable. Sylvain normally would’ve shied away, but he held his gaze. His open palm held his bare heart. The few seconds it took Felix to answer felt like hours, each one swimming with hope, building and building into a cascading wave.

Felix scoffed. “That’s a stupid idea. You know that.”

Oh. Sylvain didn’t know that. One thing he did know, however, was that he loved Felix, the one thing in his life he had always been sure of. He didn’t know that Felix didn’t love him back.

Well, he knew now. And he knew tears were running down his face. Sylvain crushed his heart in his palm.

“...Stupid?” He felt disconnected from his body, his voice crinkling from an intercom far away.

“Running off with you isn’t going to change shit,” Felix returned to picking his nails. “He’ll still be gone.”

“Well, y-yeah, but being around your dad, and Dimitri—”

“Hiding isn’t gonna make them disappear. It won’t change what they…” Felix trailed off after he lifted his head to see Sylvain turned away, rubbing his face with his blazer sleeve. “Sylvain?”

“I just thought that...m-maybe you’d rather be with…” Sylvain was sniffling too much to make sense. He didn’t know what he wanted Felix to say, what he could say to make him feel better. It felt so selfish, a teenager crying over his broken heart at someone’s fucking funeral. He was pissed at himself, pissed at the world. His sorrow grew spines, a defensive reflex Sylvain acquired after a lifetime of misplaced trust.

Felix spoke. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? For what? That you’d rather be around them than me?” Irrational! Awesome. 

Felix sighed and bowed his head. “I hate when you get like this,” he mumbled, looking away. “When you think I don’t like you.”

“Then can you _please_ explain to me why you’re picking _him_ over me?” Sylvain blurted. 

‘Him’ could mean Rodrigue, but it didn’t. ‘Him’ had been a problem between the two for a while, a one-sided one at that. Sylvain’s insecurities had successfully picked the absolute worst time to be jealous of Dimitri, and it showed in Felix’s balled fists.

“That isn’t what I said. And I don’t want to talk about _him._ I’m trying to explain it all to you, but I...I don’t know how to—” 

“How to tell me you’d rather be around Dimitri than me?” It didn’t make sense. It was so wrong. He _knew_ it was wrong. But his heart wouldn’t shut up. The words were like bile. “Thought you didn’t like him now.”

“Stop saying his _fucking_ name!” Felix gritted, pulling at his hair. “My brother is fucking _dead_ because of him. You’re making this about him, and I don’t understand why.” 

Felix’s voice was climbing in volume, and his face was contorted in panicked anger. “And I know you don’t understand me either, but I _know_ you understand this: I don’t have a fucking brother anymore, Sylvain. He’s _dust._ My brother is fucking _dust.”_

His voice cracked, and Sylvain had successfully fucked up everything, so the fog packed up and cleared from his brain. He was good at damage control, because he managed to do this sort of thing quite frequently. It was as easy as putting a band-aid on a broken femur.

Felix got up to leave, so Sylvain grabbed his hand. “Fe, I get it. I get it, he was like a brother to me—”

“No, you _don’t_ get it, Sylvain!” Felix whipped around and screamed. He yanked his arm out of Sylvain’s grip. “He isn’t your fucking brother. He’s _mine._ Just because you don’t have a fucking family doesn’t mean you were _ever_ part of mine.”

Time froze and took a snapshot of that moment.

Sylvain won’t remember when he got up and left the garden. He won’t remember that he elected to walk the four miles home from the reception. He won’t remember giving up at two, instead sinking to his knees and crying his fucking lungs out on the side of the road. And he won’t remember picking himself up, dusting off his pants, and walking the other two miles.

Sylvain will, however, remember Felix’s face, his voice at that very moment. He’ll remember it when he watches the moving van leave the next morning, and he’ll remember it for the rest of his life. 

Three.

— 

"What is your problem?"

The door clattered shut behind Ingrid's back. They were in the alleyway.

Sylvain paced in the minimal space of the short hallway. "I don't have a problem. I'm drunk."

"You're not drunk! You're a dick!"

"I'm just me, babe."

"But who the fuck _are_ you?" Ingrid wrung her hands. "I don't know you anymore, Sylvain, I have no clue who I'm even talking to!"

A glimmer in her livid eyes. Sylvain ignored it. He grinned. "I never told you what happened, huh? Do you know what fucking happened at the funeral?"

Ingrid massaged her temples. "Sylvain, I have no clue what you're saying right now."

"We fought, Ingrid," he laughed sardonically, just short of interrupting. "Me and Felix. We actually fought! Crazy, right?"

Ingrid opened her mouth to say something, but Sylvain couldn't stop. "He told me I meant nothing. But not just to him: to Glenn, to you, to my family."

It was Ingrid's turn to interrupt. “Sylvain, grow the _fuck_ up!”

Wait. Pause.

Sylvain's voice was almost a whisper. "…What?"

"Are you just going to be fourteen forever? Is that what this is?" Ingrid yelled. "It's been eight years!"

He yelled right back, "My best friend told me I wasn't worth shit, and I'm supposed to be okay when he just appears out of nowhere and acts like nothing's wrong?"

"You were literally at his brother's _funeral._ And you were completely fine in high school after—"

"You don't know _anything."_ Sylvain hissed.

She crossed her arms. "Is that my fault?"

He wanted to say yes. He wanted to blame anyone, anything, the entire fucking planet. In reality, he was doing this to himself, digging up those skeletons and brandishing them for everyone to see.

He mumbled, "There's so much. There's just…you were gone."

Let's see, there was the addiction. The hatred. The apathy. The now. "You guys were supposed to _stay_ gone."

Ingrid heaved a great sigh. She stepped closer.

"Listen, I'm sorry for dropping this all on you so quickly. I just thought you'd _want_ to see them."

"I do, but…I don’t. I don’t know. It hurt. It hurt a lot.”

“But that was _years_ ago, Syl.”

“And during all of those years, he had my number. He knew where I was. He left me, and he never came back.”

Ingrid rubbed his arm, and Sylvain winced. She let go.

"Isn't enough just to have him back?"

That was all he ever wanted.

Sylvain looked up, searching for the stars in the muddy night sky. "I'm just going to fuck it up again."

He can’t lose him again.

Ingrid shrugged. "Well, then…don't."

— 

One person has yet to leave, but she didn’t leave until two years after number three. That gave Sylvain plenty of time to burrow into her skin and hide for a while.

Ingrid was a teenage girl who drummed better than John Bonham every other Friday, ministered Eucharist on Sundays, and handled Sylvain’s crises for the rest of the fucking month. Someone should’ve told her that it wasn’t her responsibility to therapize her friends, but empathy was one hell of a disease. At least Sylvain did the same for her. They spent the two years following Glenn’s death gluing each other back together.

Still, Sylvain never told her what happened between him and Felix; he had erased it from his memory.

They didn’t go to parties because they didn’t exist, to their knowledge. They got jobs at the diner near Ingrid’s house, and spent their paychecks at that same diner together every Saturday morning. They were honor roll students with a killer work ethic, because the only thing there was to do at that high school, other than coke, was study. Most kids opted for coke. It clogged the bathroom sinks.

While these pastimes took up a sizeable chunk of their week, most of their time together was spent making music. 

For about a year, Sylvain did not touch his guitar. That changed when the two went to a swap meet, and Ingrid managed to trade her jewelry for a whole ass drum set. With the stool and everything. A cymbal rolled off when they were loading it into her dad’s truck, but it wasn’t too dented. She pretended the dents were intentional, because the old guy who drummed at the local bar had one with a bunch of little dents in it too.

Neither of them had the slightest clue as to how a drum set worked, and even less of a clue of how to play it. Their plan of action was to sit as close to the drummer as possible whenever the bar had a live band performance, and to replay Sylvain’s vinyl of The White Album until they got tired of Ringo Starr. They then moved on to _Physical Graffiti,_ and by then Ingrid’s chops were pretty damn solid. They started playing gigs at the bar every other Friday of the month, creating a band with some kids from school. They weren't what Ingrid or Sylvain could call friends, but sometimes they’d all go hang out after practice with the meth wizards on the outskirts. They played at generator parties until Ingrid got banned for starting a fight, and the band broke up.

Witnessing Ingrid’s growth and development of her own unique style got Sylvain composing again. It even got him singing, even though he thought he had a terrible voice; Felix was the one who always wrote and sang in their duo. Ingrid said Sylvain’s singing was bearable, and the rest of the town said it was amazing. Now, with Felix gone, Sylvain was forced to discover who he really was as a musician. 

In the six years between Glenn’s death and the formation of his band, Sylvain solidified his musical identity. Think Josh Homme, but the Dollar Tree, homosexual version. He even had the hair.

Homosexual. That was something else Ingrid and Sylvain spent their time doing: aggressively questioning their sexuality. As pubescent teens do. Sylvain didn’t like to voice his own issues, instead drowning them in denial, but Ingrid’s name brand Catholic Guilt was a whirlpool.

The tipping point was when Ingrid came home from a study session with her History seatmate, feeling all warm and fuzzy, and Sylvain made a hypothesis on one of their weekly dates at the diner.

“Sylvain, I...I can’t be... _gay,”_ Ingrid sputtered.

Sylvain rubbed her forearm. “You just aren’t open to the possibility! You know you definitely don’t like guys, and—”

“No, Sylvain,” she shut her eyes, and balled her fists, “I... _can’t_ be gay.”

Oh yeah.

Sylvain considered that for a moment, nodding slowly. “Well...say you were, then you could just choose not to tell them.”

“Sylvain—”

“Just hear me out,” he held his hands up, as if he were calming a nervous horse. “Ask Monica to hang out, just the two of you, and see how it goes. Remember how you feel. Your parents don’t have to know anything.”

The apprehensive frown didn’t leave her face, but her shoulders became less tense. “What happens if I enjoy it?”

“Then think about if it felt like hanging out, or more like a date.” 

Ingrid inhaled sharply at the d-word. She stared down at her empty breakfast plate, as if asking her reflection for permission. Then, she looked up at Sylvain, and gave him one slow nod: unsure of the task, but trusting in her best friend.

A week later, Sylvain dragged the telephone into the laundry room.

“It was great!” Ingrid whispered excitedly through the line.

Sylvain pumped his fist, and smiled into the phone, “So, what do you think? Was it a date?”

She was silent for a moment, before taking a long, deep breath. “Honestly, Sylvain, I think you were right. It felt like a date. I really might be interested in girls, you— _Dad!”_

The slam of a plastic phone back into the receiver. Ingrid’s voice was abruptly replaced by fast, dissonant beeping. She had hung up.

Sylvain’s world lurched, and he kneeled to the floor. Fuck. His hands were clammy, and he shivered, but his nerves were on fire. Fuck. This was all his fucking fault. It kind of always is, isn’t it? Every fucking time.

He couldn’t call back, that was for sure, and he _definitely_ couldn’t go over to her house. He couldn’t do anything. 

Ingrid disappeared off the face of the earth for a solid five days. That is, until there was a phone call for Sylvain in the early morning, just before he walked out the door to go to school.

 _“Ingrid,”_ he breathed, days of fear and uncertainty blown out the window. “I was so worried, I thought—”

“Don’t.”

Ingrid’s voice was unyielding. “I’m not allowed to speak to you anymore, but I’m allowed to tell you this,” she exhaled shakily.

“I’m leaving for Tennessee in ten minutes. I’m going to live with my grandmother. I’m not coming back, and I’m n-not going to talk to you anymore.” Her voice quavered, and Sylvain heard her sniffling. “This is me saying goodbye.”

He dropped the phone, which clattered against the floor before bouncing back up on its curled wire. From it, there was a small, faint sob: “I’m sorry.” 

That’s four. Sylvain left two days after her, but he left himself behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! i love you. the next update should come sooner since it's halfway done as i type this.  
> chapter title is the cranberries album. i don't like the cranberries, but i imagine ingrid does.  
> 


	3. Moonage Daydream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a memory, a proposition, and a battle of the bands. Most importantly, there's breakfast.

The next two years after Sylvain had left Joshua Tree were a fucking nightmare.

Within three days of arriving, Sylvain had already lost his virginity. Two days after that, he smoked his first blunt and took his first shot in the same day; turns out that high school parties weren’t all Hollywood smoke and mirrors after all. He quickly caught up with all the coke he and Ingrid had missed out on.

It was the right thing to do, because it all hurt _so_ fucking bad. The thought of a girl touching him eventually made him want to vomit, but now isn't the time to get into that. Being drunk was falling off a cliff, and being high was getting buried beneath the soil.

A few weeks after moving into his mother's place, Sylvain deduced that when she had asked him if he wanted to come with her all those years ago, it wasn't because she wanted to give him the agency of choice. It was more along the lines of securing deniability after she literally left him to die. The kid wanted to stay! He said it himself. She wasn't who he thought she was all his life, and that had him crying in his room for a few months.

His mom's place was the complete opposite of the Gautier household, which, surprisingly, didn't improve much anything at all. His mom and her boyfriend lived lawlessly. Sylvain had the pleasure of watching his mother's mental and physical wellbeing go up in smoke from the spoon over the flame. The boyfriend was perfectly nice when he was nice, but he was also the first adult figure in his life to ever hit Sylvain. He was the first person he ever saw hit his mother.

What sucked the most was that his mom really did not give a shit. The guy would tear the place up in a rage, throw the little that they owned, and scream things that were barely short of what Miklan used to say to him. Yet, every time he came back home, sobbing and apologetic, his mom let him back in. Every single time. Sylvain was invisible.

Sylvain made more music than ever during this period, despite its ties to memories of Felix, because it was one of the few things Sylvain could distract himself with. While his mom's boyfriend was the furthest thing from a father figure, he sure played a mean trombone. There were always strangers in Sylvain's home, and sometimes, when they weren't fucking or doing drugs, those strangers would bring their instruments and jam. It was during this period of his life that Sylvain immersed himself in jazz.

It was also during this time that Sylvain received his second guitar, a blue Fender Stratocaster. How his mother had obtained it, he didn't want to know, but it was, without question, the dopest gift ever. It was good timing; his other guitar, the Martin, was getting worse for the wear. It still had a long crack down the body. It was widening. He kept it in the closet.

Sylvain and his dandy new electric guitar were unstoppable. He wrote songs in the dead of night, power chords ripping through the muggy air in his backyard. His neighbors yelled over the fence for him to pipe the fuck down every night, and he yelled right back.

Another side effect of his past was his fear of making friends; he kept everyone at school at an arm’s distance, afraid of someone knowing him, _really_ knowing him, and inevitably becoming repulsed and leaving. Even when surrounded by people, Sylvain was alone, but for the first time in his life, he wanted it that way.

The easiest way to keep people away was by being an insufferable ass. Not a single honest word through that plastered smile. Forgetting which girl he was dating, and thus being genuinely surprised when he is caught cheating. Starting fights. Winning fights.

He was a nearly perfect delinquent. Unfortunately, Sylvain was really fucking smart. His new teachers knew this from his transfer records, as well as all of the mistakes Sylvain made when trying to make mistakes. In short, Sylvain failed to fail, and this was the case for all of his classes. All of these people had faith in him, giving him endless chances that he didn't deserve, and it made him sick.

Still, all of these things, in combination, kept his mind off of everything else that had transpired in the past few years.

The one thing Sylvain _did_ allow himself to excel in was writing, the sole reason being that it made his songs better; his lyrics became fuller and more haunting as his skills improved. 

His senior year English teacher had his students write their college applications as an assignment. Sylvain, for once, took it seriously, knowing that he could write as candidly and freely as he wanted, since he definitely wasn't going to mail them anyways.

But his teacher did. He paid all of the fees on his behalf, and submitted his academic record and essay to over fifteen different universities. When March came around, he plopped a stack of over fifteen fat booklet envelopes on Sylvain’s desk. Sylvain had the most prestigious acceptances in the school, and word was getting around.

People had expectations for him now. People were looking at him.

He didn’t deserve any of it, neither the success nor the empathy. The guilt was consuming him. Sylvain solved this by dropping out of high school at the tail end of his senior year. He was a month from graduating, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to fuck up, he wanted to fuck up _so_ badly. 

Sylvain came home on his decidedly last day at school, opened his closet, and found that the Martin had finally split in half.

His now-stepdad enrolled him in community college without asking, since Mom was spaced out, and Sylvain was a prick. He met Dedue on his first day, in his math class. Dedue was his antithesis: effort and potential beyond compare, but dealt the worst cards. Because of him, community college was great, but it filled Sylvain with shame that he had haphazardly turned down his opportunities to go straight to university, while Dedue deserved all of them and more.

It was a strange feeling to finally have a friend, after all those years. Sylvain found he didn't _want_ to drive Dedue away, like everyone else, and realized that he didn't have to; Dedue didn't know what kind of person Sylvain was in high school.

Maybe he never had to know. Maybe, at last, Sylvain could live.

—

"I can guarantee it doesn't hurt as much as your nipple piercing."

Present-day Dedue lounged in a chair as the artist worked on the skin beneath his left collarbone.

Last year, Sylvain set out to get two nipple piercings, but left with only one, because after the first one was put in he passed out. Maybe we'll try again this century. Right now, though, Dedue is getting a tattoo.

A really fucking big one, at that. This was the second out of three sessions. The tattoo spanned his entire upper back, and crept down his left arm. It stopped just above his elbow, where the road burn started. Dedue's entire forearm was wound with scar tissue. The left side of his body was covered in it, actually. The souvenirs of a life he wouldn't let himself forget.

Funnily enough, it was a tattoo of a Yucca tree. Who knew Joshua trees grew in New Zealand? Sylvain sure as hell didn't. Well, it wasn't _exactly_ the same as a Joshua tree, but Dedue will never tell Sylvain that. Maybe that's why you feel like home, Sylvain had said, when Dedue first told him about his idea for the tattoo.

Dedue says his home wasn't New Zealand, though, not completely. Dedue came to the USA when he was five. He says his home was the little part of Beverly Hills that wasn't Beverly Hills, but you could see Beverly Hills from his neighborhood. A child of the cocaine era. Molinaro Auto Repair. You won't find it where it's supposed to be. Or anywhere at all. Dedue says that if you don't know your history, you don't know yourself.

It was quiet, aside from the buzz of the tattoo gun. Sylvain sat cross legged on his chair, bouncing his knee. Whenever things got silent, Sylvain got nervous.

"Did you ever end up listening to that Fishbone album?"

Dedue responded, "No. Can't find it anywhere."

Sylvain kept talking. "That's weird. Anyways, Thea said she met them at a party last night. Said they were really nice, brought them to the house and everything. Norwood Fisher tried on her dad's fishing hat and wanted to keep it."

"Sounds legitimate."

Sylvain kept talking. "Right? Of _course_ that happened to her. Only her! But about the album, I just found out that literally everyone's on it."

"Everyone?"

Sylvain kept talking. He never runs out of fun facts. "Everyone. Like, Gwen Stefani, John Frusciante, Rick James, Flea, Sly Stone, George Clinton. Clinton is on everything, though. He's everywhere. Did you know that they're from L.A.?"

"We're from L.A."

Wow, Sylvain was _still_ talking. "We're from L.A.! Oh, also, did you know that Norwood Fisher smashed a pomegranate in Angelo Moore's face because he was following him around too much, and that's how they became friends?"

"I heard it was a persimmon."

"Uh, no way. That would hurt like shit."

"It really would."

They fell silent once more. Dedue always found silence comfortable, but Sylvain didn't feel the same.

"Sorry. I know I talk too much."

Dedue smiled. "That's why we're a good pair."

\--

Contrary to prior belief, Sylvain and Dedue did not have 'the mothership connection'.

Well, not when they were having sex; in other situations, they could usually read each other’s minds.

The way that night had _really_ gone down was pretty on-brand for Sylvain. It was an evening after class, and he asked Dedue if he wanted to fuck the second he walked through their apartment door. Because why not give it a try?

Dedue stood there, blinked once or twice, then gave him a thumbs up. They were already making out before Dedue had even gotten his shoes off. He carried Sylvain to bed, whose legs were wrapped snugly around his waist.

Sylvain knew he couldn’t keep having sex with girls, so he had thought that must mean that he was supposed to be having sex with guys. On top of that, he was about to sleep with someone he actually liked, and trusted. The first person he really _did_ want to be intimate with.

This _had_ to fix him. It was going to be great, and it was going to be different this time. And it was, at least for the first few minutes.

Dedue was a great kisser, and his warmth enveloped Sylvain’s body in a way that was both exciting and comforting. He hadn’t felt this turned on since…well, ever, actually. Sylvain was experiencing the thrall of desire for the first time in his entire life. How sexy of him.

Then he remembered that sex was more than just sucking face.

The touching was fine at first, but as things escalated, Sylvain became increasingly aware of his exposed body, and began to feel exactly the same as always: nauseated, anxious, and ashamed. Seen.

Dedue must have noticed something that had changed in Sylvain’s body language, because his brow creased in concern.

"Are you sure this is okay?"

"Yeah, uh, it's fine. It's good. I'm fine,” Sylvain said, but there was a tremor in his voice.

He snaked his arms behind Dedue’s neck to go in for another kiss, but Dedue wouldn’t budge. Sylvain had never noticed how beautiful his eyes were, eyes like multifaceted emeralds.

He stated firmly, "Sylvain, you can say no. It won't upset me."

This would feel fucking amazing if he were normal, wouldn’t it? God, it would, he _knew_ it would, and he wanted to want it _so_ badly.

"…Yeah, okay. Could we stop?"

Dedue smiled, and nodded. "Of course."

After untangling themselves, Sylvain sat up and sighed. "I'm sorry. It has nothing to do with you.”

"It's nothing to apologize about." Dedue handed Sylvain his clothes, then went to the drawer to grab a pair of pajama pants for himself.

After getting dressed, Sylvain didn’t get up from the bed, instead sitting with his elbows on his knees, staring at the wall.

"Did I mess everything up?"

Dedue turned to face him. "Nothing is messed up."

Sylvain willed himself not to cry, but he already felt tears welling up in his eyes. "I feel like I messed everything up."

“Well, do you still want anything to do with me?"

"Yes. I want everything to do with you. You're my best friend.” Sylvain sniffled, and wiped at his face.

"Okay, good. Because I can’t pay rent without you.”

That got a giggle out of Sylvain, albeit pitiful. "Never mind, we aren't friends. You're evil."

He stood and whacked Dedue with a pillow, who responded by picking him up and chucking him back on the bed with ease. Sylvain landed face first, knocking both the wind and a real, full-bodied laugh out of him.

After a lifetime of mistakes and terrible decisions, Sylvain had started praying every night to a god he lost touch with years ago. It didn’t matter to him if that guy was real or not. For all he knew, the good lord giveth, and he taketh away, but there was no way in hell that he would allow any higher power to take Dedue from him. 

Dedue smiled warmly as Sylvain pulled him into a hug. He combed his fingers through the mess of red curls, Sylvain's face buried in his shoulder.

"See? It's okay. We're okay."

\--

Ingrid was not in Seattle. She was still here, in foggy San Francisco. Sylvain asked why, and she responded with 'later.' There was a lot of 'later' going on between the two. For example, Ingrid had meant it that night they reunited, when she said 'we'll talk about this later.'

Sylvain hadn't gone out with anyone not named Dedue Molinaro for a long time, so seeing someone different in the passenger seat of his truck was just a bit anxiety-inducing. He was a good driver, and he knew the area well, but he knew Ingrid was going to chastise him for at least five things on their journey.

He turned the key in the ignition, then pulled his glasses out of his pocket. Ingrid shrieked.

"Wait, you have glasses? You're _blind?"_

Sylvain glared at her over the lenses. "I'm not fucking _blind._ I just need them to drive. And read. And some other stuff."

"Why don't you just wear them all the time? Or get contact lenses?"

"They make my nose look big, and contact lenses are terrifying. What if it gets stuck?" He whined.

Ingrid sighed. "You're insufferable."

"I love you, too." Sylvain mussed her hair, and turned his key in the ignition.

They went to Sylvain's favorite diner, which was in Berkeley. He liked it because they served this weird little fried thing called scrapple that you couldn't get anywhere else. He didn't even like it. He just liked the name.

After being ushered to a booth and handed their menus, Ingrid immediately started talking again.

"So, what did you do when I left?"

Sylvain provided her with the abridged version: Moved to L.A., dropped out of high school, met Dedue, went to college at Who Knows, got a degree in Who Cares.

"I'm surprised you walked out with a degree, considering all that bullcrap you just told me," Ingrid said.

"Dedue spoon-fed me through it at the tail end. He would not let me fail."

"Does your relationship benefit him in, like, any way?"

She probably shouldn't have said that. No matter how many times Dedue tells him otherwise, Sylvain feels like their friendship is entirely one-sided. Dedue barely tells him when he's having problems. He always knew the answers to Sylvain's.

Maybe Sylvain was wrong. Maybe he hadn't stopped using people after all.

Ingrid realized her mistake when Sylvain remained silent.

"What did you major in, actually?" Ingrid moved on.

Sylvain laced his fingers together behind his head. "I majored in sexy."

Ingrid snapped, "Dude, can you _literally_ be serious for _one second?"_

 _Hate me,_ he immediately thought. _It's so much easier to just hate me._

"Chemistry."

Ingrid looked surprised, but then she nodded. "You were always good at chemistry."

Sylvain shrugged. "Being the friendly neighborhood rockstar doesn't pay the bills."

"When did you decide you wanted to be a rockstar, again?"

“I’ve _always_ wanted to be a rockstar,” he drawled.

She rolled her eyes. “No you didn’t. _You_ wanted to be a paleontologist. You wanted to be a rockstar when _Glenn_ wanted to be a rockstar.”

“Well, Glenn always wanted to be a rockstar.”

“No, he didn’t, he didn’t give a shit about music until that Joshua Tree album came out, and everyone in town went nuts. Everyone his age wanted to kiss Bono’s feet.”

This was true. That album put Joshua Tree on the map. Well, just the national park, really; tourism exploded, and it got pretty difficult to host generator parties without Jeannette from Cedar Rapids crawling out of her deluxe tent and telling them to shut the fuck up.

Sylvain laughed dryly. “Miklan didn’t like that album. He set it on fire.”

Ingrid fell silent. It was while before she responded, her voice low. “You still think about him?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Of course. He’s my brother.”

Ingrid was taken aback. “Sylvain…" She paused. "Actually, never mind. I actually brought you here to talk about something.”

Sylvain hated that phrase. He swallowed. "Alright. Then talk."

It wasn't anything bad, at least not at first. She asked him if he and the rest of Insatiable would be interested in going on tour with The Horse Girls **.** Out of all the things Sylvain had guessed her band's name could be, the actual name was still the funniest. Ingrid threw her fork at him, because he laughed so hard that he cried.

There are a ton of pros, she explained: saving money, getting three times the crowd, good publicity, and the like. Adding them on would also mean getting to hit more places, since her band didn't know anyone to stay with if they wanted to tour outside of the Bay Area. Sylvain's band had to know _someone._

It all sounded pretty awesome.

"It all sounds pretty awesome," Sylvain said, leaning into his hand. "But you still have that look on your face."

The look on Ingrid's face was one you would make if you were watching someone hit the pavement from the fiftieth floor.

"The Blue Lions agreed to join us as well."

It all sounded pretty not awesome.

Sylvain leaned back in his seat. "Yeah, no. I don't think so."

She crossed her arms. "You don't speak for your entire band."

He snickered. "I'm kind of the frontman."

Ingrid groaned, and held her head in her hands. "You're a dick. You are a literal child."

"I know, right? I'm _not going."_

Their food arrived, and Sylvain thanked the lord for delivering him Ingrid's favorite diversion.

She immediately slid her plate over. "You know I'm still going to ask your band."

Sylvain aggressively sipped his milkshake. "Whatever. Is that all you wanted to berate me about?"

Ingrid spoke through a mouthful of food. Some things never change. "There's another thing, actually. Are you signed up for B.F.B.A.B.O.T.B.?"

Sylvain blinked. "Am I signed up for _what?"_

Ingrid rolled her eyes. "Come on. Big Fat Bay Area Battle Of The Bands?"

"How did you even enunciate that acronym?" Sylvain asked incredulously. "Also, I have _never_ heard of that, and I've been here significantly longer than you have."

Ingrid rolled her eyes. "That's because it's _new._ Literally every band whose location is accessible by the BART is gonna be there."

BART stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit. It should stand for Bad Awful Rancid Train.

She continued, "We're going to the Fillmore after this to sign you up. It's being held there."

"Slow down. I thought band battles were just in the movies? They're real? And when even _is_ this thing?"

Ingrid grinned. "Halloween. Everyone wears costumes!"

Sylvain cringed. "No. Nope. I've got plans."

Ingrid grunted. "Sylvain, come _on._ Don't be so fucking selfish. Ask your band. I'm giving you by the end of tomorrow, or else."

 _Selfish._ "Or else what?"

Ingrid glared. "I don't know yet, but it's going to be bad."

The waitress came back with their change, and the two headed to Sylvain's apartment. He and Dedue lived inside a concrete building not too far from the SFSU campus, but far enough from the dorms to be relatively peaceful. They used to live elsewhere, but someone had died in the elevator shaft, and the boys were a little superstitious.

He unlocked the door, which creaked open unceremoniously. "Hey, MTV, welcome to my crib!"

Ingrid grimaced. "Oh jeez, don't tell me you watch that show."

Sylvain gaped at her. "Why _wouldn't_ I want to see Snoop Dogg's house?"

"Because the rich should be eaten!"

Sylvain gave Ingrid the grand tour of the one bedroom apartment. It was astonishingly clean for two male inhabitants. It's nice to live with gay people. Dedue and Sylvain's bed (singular) was in the living room, because they had turned the bedroom into a studio. Inside the studio there were two chairs, a microphone, Dedue's weird mixing machines, and a ridiculous number of instruments. Other than Sylvain's guitar, Dedue owned everything in there. Even the chairs.

Ingrid walked around slowly, inspecting each instrument.

"Only one missing is the Martin," she chuckled.

Sylvain scratched the back of his neck. "I, uh…actually still have it."

She stared at him, then deadpanned, "You're kidding."

He motioned her to follow, and walked over to the closet. He opened the door, rummaged inside, and pulled out the guitar. He laid it gingerly on the floor.

Ingrid stared at it like it were a dead dog.

"Dude. This is fucking trashed."

It was, indeed, fucking trashed.

As per usual, Sylvain was convinced that he could fix it after it had split all those years ago, which he couldn't. He slapped on some painter's tape to stick it back together, and continued to hang onto it, just in case he someday could.

Sylvain winced, and mumbled, "But I just can't let it go, you know?"

Ingrid stared at him. "Uh, yeah, you _can._ Why don't you just throw it out?"

The thought of letting go of the guitar immediately made Sylvain's stomach lurch.

"I just want to keep it, okay? Is that so bad?" he snapped, his heart racing.

Ingrid held up her hands in defense. "Okay. Jeez. Keep it."

The lock jiggled on the door, and Dedue stepped through with a bag of groceries. He looked to Ingrid and Sylvain sitting on the couch.

"What are you two kids doing in my house?"

Sylvain leapt up, and immediately responded, "We were having sex on your couch."

Ingrid launched herself from the couch like a ballista to strangle Sylvain, whereas Dedue simply sighed, and started putting away his purchases.

\--

Here's the deal. You go on at ten. You get forty-five minutes on stage, and you're sharing that with your opponent, so don't go over, like four to five songs. Four to five. Not forty-five. You're the last bands on, so _maybe_ you can stretch it a bit, but don't count on it being more than ten or so minutes. The other band is gonna be on the other side of the audience on another stage. Talk to them. Build up some tension, mess around. Make it a good show for them, you know? Like, it's fucking Halloween, have some fun. If you wanna win, you wanna be fun. And you wanna be good. I sure hope you're good.

The tech raised his eyebrows, expecting a response. "Got it?"

"Oh. Uh, yeah. Got it," Sylvain piped up.

He did not got it. Sylvain had tuned out once the tech had started saying numbers.

Despite his protests, Sylvain found himself at the Fillmore, with his band, checking in for B.F.B.A.B.O.T.B. He still does not know the acronym.

"Thank you very much!" Ashe said. He was such a good boy. "We'll have our things ready in the wings by 9:30."

The tech nodded slowly before walking off.

Dorothea laughed gleefully. "Ten o'clock! That's just enough time to get into costume!"

Sylvain didn't know what kind of costume took four hours to put on, but he didn't make a snarky comment about it this time. He needed something from her.

"Thea, can I borrow some of your makeup?"

She broke out into an even wider grin. "Yes, yes, yes! I'll even do it for you, if you want!"

That's a fucking relief. He went over to Dorothea's house at 8:00 PM.

Dorothea's house, or more appropriately, her parents' house, was a few blocks from the corner of Haight Ashbury, just shy of the birthplace of music. There was a church at the end of the street, a simple white building with a chipped blue cross. The house was beautiful in the way that an old woman is beautiful. It had four units split between four families, the Arnaults residing in the leftmost ground-floor unit.

Upon entering, the two were stopped by Dorothea's mom. As Dorothea addressed her, she pointed Sylvain to her room down the hallway. He slid past the women and quietly entered the room.

Dorothea's room was a bit cluttered (for Sylvain's standards), but it was an organized mess. Sylvain stood awkwardly, looking around, since her desk chair had a pile of clothes on it, and sitting on her bed would just be weird.

The conversation between Dorothea and her mother started to sound more and more like an argument. Tagalog had a lot of similarities with Spanish, and there were a lot of English words thrown in too, so he was able to get a loose grasp of what was going on. Boy bad. Pregnant. Then you die. It ended shortly, and Dorothea came through the door. She shut it behind her, sighed, and looked at Sylvain.

"When you're here, you're gay. Got it?"

Sylvain understood. "Your parents _don't_ want me to have your babies?"

She laughed, and picked her clothes up off the chair, motioning him to sit. "Sylvain, _I_ don't want you to have my babies."

"Yeah, we'll see," Sylvain muttered, plopping into the chair. "Anyways, I need your help. It's kind of a big request, though."

"You know there's nothing I can't do," Dorothea chided. She was right.

At 9:00 PM, Sylvain and Dorothea met up with Dedue, Ashe, and Mercedes at the backstage entrance of the Fillmore.

Dorothea's costume hadn't taken that long to put on, but she liked to overestimate how long it took to get ready, despite always arriving fashionably late. She was dressed as Meg from the Hercules movie, and she looked better than perfect. Ashe was a hobbit, but it wasn't convincing because he was just a bit too tall. Dedue was some guy from that video game he always played that Sylvain didn't have the interest nor the attention span to understand. He knows the video game was number seven of whatever series it was, but that's all he could remember.

"I have just a few things to go over with you all," Mercedes (sexy nurse costume, very awesome) chided, paging through her folder of whatever a manager is supposed to put in a folder. "I already turned in your liability forms, but I have a few forms here from the magazines covering the concert. I read them, and there's nothing strange or restrictive about the terms."

She produced a pen from behind her ear, and each of the band members took turns signing each paper.

A lot of thought was put into the decision of hiring Mercedes a few months ago. Insatiable was getting notable enough to have to sign stuff, so they kind of needed a manager. Mercedes was Ashe's friend of a friend, and she ended up being the only person they interviewed. Post-interview, Sylvain and Dedue made their own lists of pros and cons.

Sylvain’s list had three reasons: 1. she’s pretty, 2. big boobs, 3. man, she’s just really beautiful, huh?

Dedue’s list was something like 1. her accolades are impressive, 2. she is a musician herself, and would empathize with the band's perspectives, and 3. yeah, she really is beautiful.

Mercedes officially joined Insatiable the week after that conversation. God knows what would've happened if she hadn't. Sylvain and Dedue would still be in jail for the No Scrubs debacle.

At 9:25 PM, Sylvain ran into Felix in the right wing backstage. He was wearing a tight black t-shirt, a long black coat, black pants with a belt, and his Converse. His hair was pulled up into a high ponytail. He was scowling. So much for a costume.

Sylvain waved awkwardly. "Oh. Hi."

"Hi," Felix stated.

He kept walking.

_Isn't it enough just to have him back?_

"Uh, are you here to watch?" Sylvain asked.

Felix stopped.

"Are you joking? Did you read the bracket?"

Before Sylvain could process what that meant, Felix scoffed.

"Never mind. Wouldn't expect anything less from you."

He shouldered past.

Sylvain laughed nervously. "You're not going to tell me you're gonna kick my ass on stage, or anything?"

Felix looked back over his shoulder, eyes ablaze.

"I don't fucking care."

At 9:30 PM, Sylvain was hyperventilating in the left wing backstage.

"He was probably just in a bad mood," Dorothea said as she rubbed his back.

"Yes, he was!" Sylvain barked, "He was in a bad mood because of _me!"_

Ashe sighed. "You _did_ yell at him the last time he saw you."

Sylvain ignored him. His mind was swimming with the inevitable shark that was Angry Felix Fraldarius, who he was supposed to amicably banter with in front of hundreds of people in less than thirty minutes.

Isn’t this what he had wanted?

Dedue clapped him on the shoulder.

"Think of the band."

Sylvain looked up at him, and sighed. He was right; Sylvain needed to give his best performance no matter what Felix would end up doing. This was their biggest crowd yet, and the event was going to be covered in a few magazines. One band would even get a full-page spread and article. With upwards of fifteen other bands in attendance, Insatiable needed to shine, a most difficult task indeed considering their biggest competition was The Blue Lions, who had a larger following.

In short, fuck Felix. Sylvain was going to swallow his heart and give the audience a good fucking time. Sylvain was going to get his band that spread, no matter what it cost.

\--

At 10:00 PM, Insatiable was on stage. The crowd was nothing like they had ever experienced before, their last concert's audience absolutely tiny in comparison. The crowd was, also, completely ignoring them, because the Blue Lions were now getting on their own stage, which stood at the other end of the venue.

Felix didn't look as pissed as he did earlier, which was good. Still, he was staring intensely at Sylvain, which was bad.

Fuck. How do you keep up your scumbag stage persona while talking to the person who likely hates it the most? He realized his predicament: win the battle, or win back Felix? It wasn't an option to do both. He also hadn't taken anything before the show, since they were checked for substances upon entering, so his brain was going 300 miles per hour, and his lungs felt like they were going to explode.

Well, not having a plan was his specialty, and the stage manager was giving the sign to start the show.

Sylvain took a deep breath. "Do I get the pleasure of knowing your name, sir?"

"Very funny," Felix responded, lowering the mic stand. "You couldn't forget my name if someone dropped you on your head."

That actually got Sylvain to laugh, a real laugh that made his eyes crinkle. "Then I guess I don't have to introduce myself to you, either. I'm pretty unforgettable."

He winked, and Felix cringed. It stung a little. Well, a lot.

Felix looked down at the audience, and pointed over at Sylvain. "Do I have to tell you all his name? Or do you know already?"

The following uproar sounded _something_ like 'Sylvain.' He pointed back up at himself, and the crowd responded similarly.

"Cool. Well, if you know all that, then you know that we're a better band then, too," Felix said.

This got the crowd even more riled up. It was strange, seeing Felix playing to an audience, the same Felix that refused to speak a single word to the onlookers at their generator performances, shying away and ducking his head as he sang. Then again, it's been established that Felix had changed. Sylvain was still grappling with that, and Felix was already running off with the win.

"Hey! I wanted to say the first insult," Sylvain complained.

Felix crossed his arms. "I doubt there's anything you can say that would hurt my feelings."

This was kind of true. Felix and Sylvain had called each other every insult under the sun.

"You're right," Sylvain smirked. "But have you ever been insulted in song?"

Felix groaned as Ashe counted Insatiable off.

It was really, _really_ difficult to try and perform while looking at Felix, so for the most part, Sylvain directed his attention to the audience.

He and Dorothea traded off singing in this song, coming together for the final chorus. During Dorothea's part, at concerts, Sylvain likes to lay back on her keyboard and stare up at her like fucking Romeo. She's always unfazed, just smiling back at him as she fills the venue with the voice of a siren. Sometimes she plays along. Tonight, she actually gave him a kiss on the forehead. Sylvain was elated.

Ashe was an absolute force to be reckoned with. He played drums like he was beating someone up in a parking lot. Scrappy, heavy, and confident. That didn't mean it was _bad,_ very much the opposite: nobody drummed like Ashe, and Ashe didn't want anyone to. He kept things unpredictable.

Then there's Dedue. You can't even describe Dedue, because he's just better than everyone. Dedue turns his bass into a living, breathing being, and you get to watch him imbue it with life when he plays. The bass takes your heartbeat, and it willingly follows. Dedue becomes all five of your senses, and adds a sixth or seventh one too. Sylvain thinks their upcoming album should be just Dedue. Dedue won't allow this to happen.

The audience was already applauding by the time the song ended. Sylvain thanked them, and once they died down, he brought his gaze up to the Blue Lions.

Felix stood with his arms crossed. Everyone, even the crowd, stood in rapt silence as they awaited his verdict. He seemed to relish the suspense, grinning widely, which meant that he was probably going to say something mean.

Felix finally spoke. "Amazing. You know how to play guitar now."

The crowd _ooohed_ at Felix's sick burn.

Okay, fuck the stage persona. He'll make up for being boring later in the show, or something. He needed to bully Felix right now.

After introducing the rest of the band, and giving Felix a nice dose of his middle finger, Sylvain addressed the audience.

"If it's not clear enough already, I have some history with this little guy. Which is why it's going to be extra fun watching him lose tonight."

"If you call me 'little guy' ever again, I'm throwing this," Felix said, lifting the mic stand over his head.

"Your little baby man arms are too short to throw it _anywhere_ close to me."

“Fuck you. You suck," Felix rubbed his chin, laughing along with the audience, as he loaded his next insult. "Are you still not able to play bar chords? I don’t think I’ve seen you strum your guitar once up there. All you do is pick.”

Sylvain scoffed. “It’s a stylistic choice!”

“You literally play it like it’s a bass.”

“Well, I was taught by a bass player. One of the best.”

That one just sort of slipped out, and Sylvain knew he'd fucked up by mentioning Glenn. To his surprise, however, Felix actually smiled, his eyes cast downward.

"Yeah, I know that," he said, almost too quietly to be picked up by the mic.

It's hard to tell how long the two just stood there, frozen in the moment. Sylvain couldn't help but wonder if Felix was actually… _enjoying_ this. If he wasn't actually angry at him. If he wasn't faking all of it for the sake of the show.

"I forgot to ask, but what are you wearing?" Felix asked, getting the show back on the tracks.

Okay, David Bowie didn't have the lightning bolt when he wore this outfit, but Sylvain wanted the costume to look like a costume, and he really _really_ wanted an excuse to buy this dope blue suit he found in the back of Goodwill. Also, the lightning bolt looked awesome. There really wasn't anything Thea couldn't do.

"Is the big ass lightning bolt on my face not obvious enough?"

Felix raised his eyebrow, skeptical. "You _hated_ David Bowie. You made fun of him every time he was on the radio."

"Things change!" Sylvain whined. He surveyed the members of the Blue Lions.

Annette looked great, in what seemed to be a homemade velvet dress and cape, plastic vampire fangs peeking out over red lips. The costume must have taken days to put together, and it was a shame that it was all obscured behind her drum set.

Dimitri wore a striped shirt, a red bandanna, and an eyepatch. A pirate. A fucking pirate.

Sylvain's gaze returned center. "What's your costume, then, Felix?"

Felix was wearing a tight black t-shirt, a long black coat, black pants with a belt, and his Converse. So, the same exact outfit he was wearing earlier, and the same exact outfit he wore every day.

He spun around unceremoniously. "I'm the Matrix guy."

Sylvain stared incredulously. "Felix, you wear that exact outfit every day. Those are your normal clothes."

"No, I have sunglasses," Felix pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket.

"You aren't even _wearing them."_

"He takes his sunglasses off at _some_ point in the movie. It's too dark in here to wear them."

"Do you even know his name? The Matrix guy?" Sylvain asked.

Felix looked puzzled. "He has a name?"

Oh _man,_ this was going to be a fun night.

"Ugh, whatever," Felix mumbled into the mic, "it's our turn now. Shut up and enjoy the sound of you losing."

Sylvain's laughter was drowned out by Dimitri's opening riff. He recognized the song from their album, which Dedue had purchased and forced him to listen to by pinning him to the bed in a half-nelson.

The Blue Lions were loud, and they were fast, but not to the point where they could be categorized into the respective genres of each. They had created something completely new.

Their precise lock on tempo was thanks to Annie. Her technique was so meticulous, even, and clean, that even a machine couldn't match her. A machine also couldn't drum with the passion and emotion that Annie did, her dynamics and personal flair showing the world that she owned this song. She owned this band.

Dimitri was actually a wonderful guitarist. Sylvain didn't know when or how he learned how to play it, but man did he play it well. However, the way he played was the complete opposite of what Sylvain had imagined it to be; Dimitri played like his life depended on it, with power and desperation that Sylvain had never seen before in a performer. In-your-face, as if his guitar was just saying _fuck you fuck you fuck you_ over and over again. This wasn't the Dimitri he remembered, but it wasn't a bad thing.

But the best thing about the song was Felix. Felix's range and power as a vocalist was nothing like Sylvain had ever heard before, so much more full and controlled than he remembered it to be. As for his bass skills, those were also unmatched; his nimble fingers flew up and down the neck in effortless precision. Felix had surpassed Glenn as a musician, and he had likely surpassed him a long, long time ago.

The song had ended in the same deafening applause that Insatiable had received; it was difficult to tell if it was any louder, so Sylvain decided that the bands were currently tied in the competition.

Felix brushed hair out of his eyes, panting. "Well?"

Sylvain pivoted his mic stand to Dedue, who leaned in to say, "That was quite good."

Dorothea assented, and Ashe made an OK sign with his hand.

"See, Felix? That is called _being nice!"_ Sylvain stated as if he were addressing a toddler.

Sylvain's stage persona was absolutely beyond recovering. As he had expected, it was impossible to keep up when talking to Felix. So he didn't. Sylvain was going to be Sylvain tonight. If the audience didn't like him, screw them. Nobody liked him anyways. Hell, if it lost them the competition, screw it.

It was selfish, but Sylvain just wanted to keep talking to Felix. Like this. Like the way they used to. Sure, Felix was just pretending so he could win, but god knows how much Sylvain loved to play pretend.

The crowd was extremely responsive. Lots of song requests. Someone was always screaming a band member's name. Someone even asked Felix to take off his shirt.

Felix enumerated his excuses not to do that on his fingers. “It’s October. It’s cold. And what about my costume?”

The room was hot as balls, and Felix’s costume was not a costume. Take it off. Take it off. The crowd’s chants grew louder, and Sylvain was rolling on the floor. Felix tried to get them to harass Dimitri instead, but his efforts were futile. It’s amazing what mob mentality can do; Dimitri, quite literally, had the body of an ironworker. That was actual his day job.

Felix seemed to realize something, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “I’ll take my shirt off if _he_ takes his shirt off.”

He nodded his chin up at Sylvain.

Wow. He really will turn anything into a competition. It was a good move, because the crowd immediately turned around, and Sylvain ate the bait with relish. There was only one way he could turn this around and get the crowd back on his side.

He shrugged. “I have no qualms with that.”

Sylvain wanted to keep upping the ante. How much could he get away with? Well, Felix hated him anyways. Might as well go all in.

He leaned down, lips brushing the mic. “If you wanted to see me strip that badly, you could've just asked,” he crooned exaggeratedly.

Sylvain couldn’t hear his own thoughts over the crowd’s reaction. Felix turned beet red, and clapped his hands over his ears, while Dimitri doubled over in laughter. 

Felix grabbed the mic stand. “Jesus Christ. Have you always been this full of it?”

Sylvain stared straight into his eyes, willing them to meet despite the distance. “You know better than anyone.”

Sure, there were a thousand eyes on them, and countless voices belting their names. Yet, in all of the commotion, Sylvain only saw one person. He only saw one playful smirk, one pair of eyes that reflected an endless, starlit sky. 

Felix crossed his arms. “Get on with it, then. Don’t be disappointing.”

Sylvain did not know how to do a lot of things, but one thing he _did_ know was how to be hot shit. Sylvain could be anything the crowd wanted. Anything Felix wanted. He turned to face the rest of his band. “Hey, can you guys play the sexy song?”

Dedue muttered, “Do you _really_ not know the actual name of the song?”

“See, but you know which one I’m talking about!” Sylvain made finger guns at him. They were not reciprocated.

Dedue stood stoically, contemplating why he was where he was at that very moment, then sighed, picked up Sylvain's guitar, and played the opening riff of Let’s Get It On by Marvin Gaye. The crowd went wild. Ashe was laying down a beat, Dorothea was singing soulfully, and Sylvain was determined to be the sexiest man in San Francisco, in the most irritating way possible. If Felix was going to raise the bar, Sylvain was going to shoot it to the moon.

He got started on unbuttoning his cuffs. "Okay, this actually might take a while. I think I'm wearing five different things on top right now," Sylvain chuckled, before winking. "But I promise it'll be worth it."

He was right: the jacket, the tie, the suspenders, the waistcoat, and the shirt. Sylvain was obnoxious. But it all came off, with sways of the hips and all sorts of flexing. He even did that thing where you make your pecs dance, which he had never been able to do before. All sorts of miracles going on tonight. It was hilarious, and it was hot. Sylvain's bread and butter.

Sylvain looked up and over the raucous crowd, and at Felix, who looked absolutely bored.

“Is that it?”

Sylvain gaped. _“‘Is that it?’_ You can do better, then? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.” 

Felix pulled his shirt over his head and threw it to the crowd in less than a second. As he picked his bass back up, he leaned over to the mic. “You’re a whore. It’s inefficient.”

Sylvain skated his eyes over Felix's bare torso.

Yeah. Felix was _not_ a kid anymore.

"What happened to the pile of twigs I once knew?" Sylvain feigned wiping a tear from his eyes.

 _"Things change,"_ Felix mocked, in an uncanny Sylvain impression.

The audience had no boundaries; three songs later, nobody on either stage was wearing a shirt. Well, other than Annie and Dorothea, who actually gave a shit about their costumes.

Sylvain caught Dimitri ogling when Dedue's came off. Understandable. Sylvain ogled harder, but he did that pretty much every night when Dedue got out of the shower. He usually got a towel thrown at his face for it. Either way, Sylvain was sure he caught Dedue looking at Dimitri, too.

By each band's sixth song, the concert had definitely gone over the time limit, but no one had come out yet to cut them off. So, Insatiable, the Blue Lions, and their audience just kept jamming. It wasn't until midnight, over an hour past their supposed cutoff, that the venue staff realized that they were supposed to be manning the concert instead of enjoying it.

It was weird not having to tear down the stage, since the event had staff to do it on behalf of the bands. As a result, Sylvain and the crew were able to go backstage and immediately clamor onto the nearest couch, which didn't comfortably fit the four of them. They were too tired to care, but also too hyped to leave each other's side.

Damn, what a good fucking show.

After resting, and having the life squeezed out of him by Mercedes, the only thing on Sylvain's mind was finding Felix. He couldn't leave until they'd talked about everything that had transpired onstage. He set out down the hallway to make the trek to where the Blue Lions kept their instruments.

He didn't find Felix, but he did find Dimitri.

"Sylvain! Oh, you and your band were so wonderful," he said, setting his guitar down. Back to kind and polite Dimitri, it seems. "Seeing you in your element brings back memories."

"You guys were even better," Sylvain replied, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "Have you seen Felix?"

Dimitri raised his eyebrows. "Yes, he had gone off to look for you a few minutes ago. This way, I—oh, there he is!"

Sylvain spun around to see where Dimitri was pointing, and sure enough, Felix was there, at the center of the hallway's entrance.

"Hey—"

Before Sylvain could say anything else, Felix was hugging him like a vice grip. Sylvain was still shirtless, and definitely still sweaty, but Felix wasn't the kind of guy to care. 

"Hey." Felix replied, a murmur just behind Sylvain's ear.

And just like that, Sylvain was crying. It was all over: the confusion, the fear, the uncertainty.

"Stop crying," Felix hissed. "There's people."

"I don't care."

"Figures," Felix sighed. "We're getting lunch tomorrow."

"Who?" Like, the whole band?

"Us. You and me."

Sylvain laughed, still a bit teary.

"I'd like that, Fe."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, and if you follow this fic, thank you for sticking with me and waiting for this chapter! i had a lot of difficulty writing this one, despite having half of it written when i posted the last chapter. you can solve a lot of problems by just adding more dedue.
> 
> from here on out, the chapters will start being more linear. there will still be some flashbacks, but those will most likely get their own chapters. gotta get this plot MOVING!!!

**Author's Note:**

> title, and general inspiration for the fic, is [this song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeJ_-LLUbOc) my twitter is @d0themario


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